It was good to note Eric Schmidt's tribute to the British pioneers of computing in his McTaggart lecture (Report, 27 August), and the background piece on the role played by the catering firm J Lyons in the "invention" of business computing (How Lyons teashops powered computers, 27 August). An important aspect of the story which should be noted is that the idea came from two other Lyons executives, Oliver Standingford and Thomas Raymond Thompson, who visited the US in 1947, on behalf of the Lyons Controller, John Simmons, to discover if there had been any significant progress in business processes which could be useful for Lyons.
They found little to interest them except digital computers used for technical calculations. It was they who immediately saw that the ability to do repetitive calculations automatically could be used for business processes. They even sketched the way a computer could be used for calculating the complex Lyons payroll. They wrote a report in their visit recommending Lyons to explore further the possibility of designing and using a computer for business data processing.
Simmons, himself recruited from Cambridge as a Wrangler (top mathematician), endorsed the report and sent it to the board of directors who accepted the recommendation and subsequently collaborated with Maurice Wilkes at Cambridge University in the design of the Leo (Lyons Electronic Office) computer. Thompson led the project and became CEO of Leo Computers Limited.Frank Land
• I run a professional development course for academics at the University of East Anglia and have a decade's experience observing how new lecturers are responding to technology. Over that period I have noticed significant changes in attitude and experience on both sides of the supposed "divide". Ten years ago humanities lectures were more resistant to using technology in teaching, while science and technology teachers were reluctant to consider any approaches to teaching that originated outside their discipline. Those attitudes are now almost unknown. Increasingly, humanities academics are using technology in their teaching, and science and technology academics are using a much wider ranger of teaching techniques. Academics are also working across disciplinary divide in our course, with scientists and humanities lecturers working together and advising each other.
So from my (admittedly narrow) perspective the arts and humanities divide that Eric Schmidt refers to has long gone.
Natasha Curson
Norwich
• In drawing naive conclusions as to what needs to change in schools, Eric Schmidt is guilty of misleading precisely those policymakers he seeks to challenge. When Schmidt "was flabbergasted to learn that today computer science isn't even taught as standard in UK schools", he might have checked whether it was taught as standard in most US school districts. And when he discovered (as one suspects he would) that the answer is "no", he might then have gone back and asked himself why not. His article contains part of the explanation.
The official school curriculum should control only part of the school day, but should focus on "generic" disciplines (like maths), not on particular applications (like computer science). Where one tries to invent artificial "subjects" such as ICT, one can expect to see precisely the degeneration Schmidt observes about the UK: "teaching how to use software … [with] no insight into how the software is made". We need more teachers to engage students in "how software is made" – but please, not as part of some centrally imposed curriculum.
Dr Tony Gardiner
Birmingham
• Eric Schmidt is right. People can write poetry and build bridges. Let us remember that engineering (defined as "turning ideas into reality" by our political leaders) is an art and a science.
Professor emeritus David Blockley
School of engineering, University of Bristol
• Google earned more than £2.15bn UK revenues last year but it uses a corporate tax avoidance scheme known as the "Dutch sandwich" to pay an overall tax rate of 2.4% on non-US earnings. The UK corporate tax rate is 28%. Google shouldn't weep crocodile tears if British kids aren't educated to its standards.
Dr John AG Bremner
Edinburgh
--
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/29/bridging-arts-science-divide
~
Manage subscription | Powered by rssforward.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment