Archeology of Computer Science: Islamic, Iberian, and Pre-Columbian Roots

Catalog description

This course examines the history of computer science before there were computers and before there was a scientific field. It makes use of an archaeology of knowledge to find traces in the past for ideas and practices common in our present. We will explore in this course some of the ideas and devices that foreshadowed, during the Middle Ages and Early Modernity, the field of computation. We will also explore the different uses that were given or were meant to be given to these ideas and devices. In this journey, we will discover how different cultures created, used, or imagined different devices for computation. Some of the topics that we will cover are: al-Khwarizmi's algebra, al-Jazari's clocks, Raymond Llull's combinatorial diagrams, Peruvian Quipus, and Leibniz's binary numbers. Our focus is cultural, philosophical, and historical, the course will not involve programming and knowing how to program is not a prerequisite. Taught in English.