Computer science in the 21st century is sometimes understood as a science that deals with exceptionally high technologies and computers. In fact, this field of knowledge deals with any type of information transfer, its storage and processing.
The need for information transfer
It is difficult to imagine, but over more than 95% of a person’s existence, information was transmitted only verbally or by observation in real time. The methods of creating tools, the methods of hunting or growing plants, the simplest logical connections based on observations of nature have been handed down from generation to generation for millennia without a single record - people simply did not know how to do this otherwise.
With the advent of writing, the historical period of the existence of mankind begins - this means that any information has become possible to transmit in time and space. The growth in the volume of transmitted information has increased and continues to grow today with every new century: the knowledge that a person receives today in several years exceeds the knowledge acquired by a medieval person in his entire life.
The abstract of the lesson on the history of computer science should include data on at least two important issues - this is an account and a letter.
The first attempts to work with information
At school, a lesson on the “Background of Computer Science” begins with stories about the origin of the account, and this is no accident. A person learned to count much earlier than to write: notches indicating the number of objects are found several millennia before the first attempts to convey some deeper meaning with signs.
This can also be traced by the example of modern tribes that are in the early stages of development: they are able to operate with simple numbers using fingers, pebbles or sticks, but they have absolutely no written language and do not even attempt to create it.
Hazard signals
The most important signal known to the history of computer science was a danger signal that a person should have been able to transmit from the very beginning of his existence. Shouts were the simplest way of warning, but the limited range of sound propagation contributed to the development of other methods that affected visual perception.
Widespread practice around the world was signal fires. There was a group of people whose duties included the rapid fire at a certain point in case of danger. Smoke served as a signal during the day, and fire at night. Information along the chain reached the main city in the area, and the authorities took any action to solve the problem.
Signal flags were also used, which made it possible to transmit several types of signals at once, the meaning of which people agreed initially. The visibility of such a signal was less, however, this method allowed us to convey not only the fact of the existence of the danger, but also to determine its source.
Account history
The oldest reliable attempts to count using nicks on bones date back to the 30th millennium BC. This example cannot be considered an account as such, but it can be concluded that the human brain is sufficiently developed to associate real objects with abstract quantitative values. From this moment we can talk about the history of computer science, and it is this property of reason that as a result will mark the formation of science.
The regular use of mathematical operations appears only in ancient Egypt. It is safe to say that the names of the numbers appeared much later than the moment when mankind learned to count.
Number systems
Each civilization went its own way in creating number systems and designating numerical concepts. As the history of computer science shows, the history of numbers and number systems varies from civilization to civilization.
For example, the Babylonians counted “sixty,” that is, the way we count minutes and hours today. For some peoples, the countdown was carried out in dozens, in some - “twenty”. This choice is due to the number of fingers used for counting: in the first case, these are the fingers, in the second - the hands and feet.
In hundreds of languages from all existing on the planet, there are only numerals from one to five (or less), and the remaining numbers are indicated by a combination of these words: for example, “four” can be designated as “two or two”.
Account Tools
The background of computer science knows a whole lot of tools that help a person in calculations.
The simplest available means were pebbles, seeds, or any other objects of small size, each of which became the equivalent of the type of objects that needed to be counted. Two dozen sheep could be replaced with twenty pebbles, five sheaves of wheat with five tablets, etc.
Later, more “advanced” methods were invented: counting by knots on the ropes; abacus, abacus - a board with parallel sections, each of which was the next discharge.
The first calculating machine was invented in the 17th century by Blaise Pascal. Later, Leibniz proposed a model of an arithmometer, which, up to the 20th century, remained the most popular computing device. Finally, in the 20th century, humanity will move from the history of computer science to its history: it will create a computer, programming languages and databases, computational and neural networks, and much more. But this is a completely different story.