A "Language of mathematics": neutrality as a facilitator of circulation during the Cold War

• Autores: Helena Durnova
• Localización: The Circulation of Science and Technology: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science. Barcelona, 18-20 November 2010 / coord. por Antoni M. Roca Rosell, 2012, ISBN 978-84-9965-108-8, págs. 1141-1146
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Computing and cybernetics are two fields with many intersections, which often leads to confusion. As Slava Gerovitch has shown (cf. From Newspeak to Cyberspeak, MIT Press, 2002; ‘Feedback of Fear’, presentation at 23rd ICHST Congress, Budapest, July 28, 2009), cybernetics and its developments were heavily interconnected with politics on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Computing, on the other hand, was promoted on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and compared to cybernetics provided a more neutral ground for the exchange of ideas and concepts.

    The most neutral part of computing is connected with those parts that are close to mathematic: with programming rather than with the machines themselves. When programmers realised the benefits of sharing the outcome of their work, computer programmes or software, they opted for a programming language “as close as possible to mathematical notation”. In my contribution, I will examine how the neutrality of such language –the language of mathematics– facilitated sharing practices, ideas, and results of the endeavour among computer scientists. Special attention will be paid to the spread of the ideas of the Dutch computer programmer Edsger W. Dijkstra and his Discipline of programming and related works in the community of computer scientists in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s.