Human Computation (Slides)

The word computer was originally used (circa 1900's) to describe a person whose job it was to compute.

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~jshaw/pick.html

"Pickerings Harem" was a group of women computer's who translated astronomical data recorded on photographic films into tables of data in standardized units.

Human Counting Machine

Decimal

We are used to writing and thinking of numbers using a system of [Arabic numerals], a technology that originated in Persian mathematics in the 1st and 2nd century. In this system, 10 discrete symbols (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) are used to express an infinite number of concepts of quantities.

An important step is to (re) make the separation between the notion of a particular quantity (say the number of days in the month of February, or twenty-eight) and the numeric notation of that concept ("28"). "28" is simply one way of expressing this concept. Early romans would express the concept with "XXVIII".

Rules (Decimal):
1. When tapped on your shoulder, count.
2. When you get to 10, tap the shoulder of the person next to you and "zero" your count.

File:HumanCountingMachine decimal.ogv

Results:
8, 1  =>
(reversing order)
18
Decoding:
10's  1's
1     8

File:HumanCountingMachine binary.ogv

18 = decimal representation of "eighteen"

Binary

Rules (Binary):
1. When tapped on your shoulder, raise your hand.
2. When you get tapped and your hand is raised, tap the shoulder of the person next to you put your hand down.

Results:
0, 1, 0, 0, 1 =>
(reversing order)
10010
Decoding:
16's 8's 4's 2's 1's
1    0   0   1   0

10010 = binary representation of "eighteen"