"I asked Uncle Ren today to help design this kind of mechanical computer by using his mathematical ability.

Leibniz and Pascal, among others, were from the 17th century, and the blueprints for their invention of the mechanical computer were widely circulated, and I found many books on them.

Charles Babbage's theory is supposed to be the most advanced, and last year I commissioned an ocean-going merchant captain to England to collect his writings, but I didn't expect this captain to visit the scholar directly, buy his writings, copy his design drawings at a high price, etc., and bring them back to Shanghai.

The analysis machine brought back by the captain was extremely informative, including more than 20 design plans completed by Charles Babbage and Ada Augusta, 1,600 assembly drawings and 40,000 parts drawings.

However, this kind of analysis machine is extremely complex, and even if you get the design drawings, you need a high level of mathematical literacy to understand, and I think there are many obstacles in my own opinion, so I want to ask Uncle Ren for help. ”

Zhao Dagui said politely, and handed Li Xinlan a few books that he had brought before, which were naturally all books about mechanical computers, from Leibniz's hand-cranked mechanical computer to Charles Babbage's steam engine-driven analysis machine, the information was very informative.

These are all arrangements made by Zhao Dagui after his career, which was originally an idle move, but now it seems that it is possible to achieve it.

Babbage's analyzer was the ancestor of modern computers, and was designed to automatically solve complex problems with 100 variables, each up to 25 digits, at a speed of up to one operation per second.

Ada Augusta, the daughter of the English poet Byron, wrote a number of function calculation programs for the analysis machine, such as the program of trigonometric functions, the program of series multiplication, the program of Bernoulli's function, etc., which were also used until the 21st century, and later became known as the world's first software engineer.

(Note: Byron's family is very interesting, Byron himself is the founder of vampire genre literature, and his daughter is the world's first software engineer, so he will not hesitate to lose his family property, if this family has nothing to do with the traverser, it doesn't make sense.) ）

Li Xinlan read the book quickly and flipped through a few books, although she didn't understand it directly, she also figured out the general meaning.

"This analyzer is very interesting, it can be called a feat that has not been seen for thousands of years, Brother Zhao actually wants to build this analyzer.

It's just that tens of thousands of precision parts are needed to make an analysis machine, and the error of the main parts must not exceed one thousandth of an inch.

Even if you buy from the British factory, the cost is astronomical.

In addition, the calculation power of this analyzer is affected by the external environment such as the precision of the mechanical parts, temperature, friction, and air flow, and some errors will be transmitted when driven by a steam engine, which is very prone to errors.

Unless there is an absolutely ideal world that is free from external parameters such as temperature and air currents, where time can be measured accurately, and the errors of points, lines, and surfaces of the parts are horribly low, it will take a lot of effort to correct the errors.

In fact, such an analysis machine does not have much practical value, and Brother Zhao wants to build an analysis machine, borrowing its computing power, I am afraid it is not very cost-effective.

It is better to find a few bookkeepers who have a first-class abacus and work together, at least in the past few decades, it will be much more useful than this analysis machine. Li Xinlan commented, and commented to the point.

In Zhao Dagui's timeline, Charles Babbage was a great genius who created the theory and design of the analysis machine very early, but because of the limited level of machining at that time, the cost of producing tens of thousands of high-precision parts for the analysis machine was too high (the difference machine that is simpler than the analysis machine needed 25,000 parts), and he failed to produce enough high-precision parts in his lifetime.

After the death of Charles Babbage, all the energy, time and wealth that had taken him and Ada Augusta to make the parts were useless and were put into the furnace to be re-smelted.

In this way, the analysis machine can only survive as the final fantasy of the steampunk world, which is constantly embarrassing.

It wasn't until more than 100 years later that the replacement of those mechanical parts with integrated circuits could achieve the functions that Charles Babbage had intended, and the analysis machine became the ancestor of modern computers;

Charles Babbage and Ada Augusta left behind more than 30 design proposals, nearly 2,100 assembly drawings and 50,000 parts drawings, which also became the last miracle of the steam age.

Zhao Dagui himself understands what Li Shanlan means, under normal circumstances, the absolute ideal world only exists in the imagination of mathematicians, and cannot exist, so even if a huge amount of money is spent to make an analysis machine, it is not of much use.

However, who let there be such an irrational existence in this world as the main god, he himself happens to have such a space, and he also has the ability to manufacture parts with micron-level accuracy.

In other words, Zhao Dagui is also very pitiful, other main gods can get the most advanced quantum level of computer assistance in the first three chapters of the novel, and he can do anything, but he himself has to start with the simplest mechanical computer, no wonder the old people in the book review area say that the main god of this book is low.

"Uncle Ren is right, I also know that the analysis machine is not practical, and it will not be possible to do it in the short term.

What I hope is not to build such a machine now, but to understand the theory first, make design drawings, and build it slowly in the next five or sixty years. Zhao Dagui said sincerely.

"Fifty or sixty years, Brother Zhao has really thought far. At this moment, the corners of Li Xinlan's mouth couldn't help twitching, "But this matter is really interesting, I will study it carefully, and it should not be difficult to derive practical design drawings." ”

"Then it's all up to Uncle Ren, if you need manpower or resources or something, tell me, I'm on call. Zhao Dagui said overjoyed.

"When it's time to speak, I'm not polite. It's just that Brother Zhao should be ready to deal with the disaster of the collapse of the foreign cloth business now, does he have so much energy to invest in this area?" Li Xinlan nodded, and suddenly said curiously.

"What kind of foreign cloth collapsed, I don't know what Uncle Ren said?" Zhao Dagui originally wanted to get up and say goodbye, but when he heard this, he couldn't help but feel like he had been struck by lightning, and he sat back in his chair and never got up.

"I see that Brother Zhao hurriedly withdrew from the foreign cloth business, and for this reason he did not hesitate to sell the industry in Suzhou, no longer enter Suzhou to operate, and also bought land and shipyards, etc., to avoid the impact of the stagnation of foreign cloth sales, isn't it?" Li Xinlan asked strangely.

"Now that the foreign cloth business is just booming, everyone is rushing into this business, how can Uncle Ren have such a strange idea and think that this business will collapse?" Zhao Dagui glared at Li Xinlan, not wanting to admit it, but in the end he was defeated.

"When Uncle Ren said these words, he must have seen something, and please teach me. Zhao Dagui thought about it and said sincerely.

As soon as Zhao Dagui said this, Li Xinlan couldn't help but get nervous.