What would software for analog computing look like? I don’t mean low level like potentiometer knobs. That’s like machine code I guess. But higher levels of abstraction. An example might be interferometry. Is the Boolean abstraction necessary for complex computing?
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Here’s a theoretical model, the Blum-Shub-Smale machine. What would useful realizations of such things look like?
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I used to own this book for a decade and never really tried to get into it. Can’t find it now, might have given it away.
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Analog computing is the table measuring wittgensteins ruler 🤔
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I think back in the day analog computers were never really programmable. At most you could tweak some knobs to change weights on embodied differential equations etc.
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I guess I’m not phrasing the question well. I’m not talking about 1940s vintage vannevar bush style analog computing but a possible modern descendant capable of fairly general computation with real numbers and infinite precision (Shannon noise-limited) hardware.
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For information processing, even biology tends to handle only quantized info. First thing your eyes do with light is convert it into "sensor on / off" at the optic nerve, transmitting discrete binary signals. It's not clear an analog computer is even possible, theoretically.
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The necessity of managing errors tends to turn every analog computer into some version of a digital one in one way or another.
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there have been loads of hydraulic computers and i believe in the navy they used to have mechanical integrators 2 aim artillery
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