The age of chivalry is over, and with it comes the world of wise men, economists and computer geniuses. -Edmund Burke

Originally seen from Paul Samuelson's economics, of course, this is not what he said, and Samuelson quotes the 18th century Irish philosopher, Edmund Burke, as the first chapter of economics.

In the Edmund Burke, the 18th century predicts that the future will be the world of computer genius. You know, the computer was invented almost two centuries after the "Prophecy" (1946, the world's first electronic digital computer "ENIAC" appeared).

Edmund Burke is such a cow. 200 years ago, you could have foresight. Then turned the English version of "economics", found the original word "The Age of Chivalry is gone--that of sophisters, economists, and calculators have succeeded;< /c0> ", Oh, the original is calculator, I translate it. Very tangled Ah, said he is a computer genius is not too, not to mention the computer genius this name in today's network era is really a force ah. But this "computer" is a bit different from the computer we usually talk about. To figure this out, you'll have to revisit computer history.

In everyone's mind, the beginning of computer history is that in countless textbooks will appear in the "ENIAC", in fact, this point of view and the fact that the difference is very far, "ENIAC" can only be said to be the symbol of the computer age. The complete computer history goes back to the mechanical computers of the centuries prior to the "ENIAC"-the ability to calculate by mechanical means: 1623, German scientist Chikkad (W. Schickard) made the first mechanical computer ever to be able to perform a six-digit subtraction operation. Then through the efforts of Pascal (B.pascal), Leibniz (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz), Babbage (C.babbage), Hollerith and other people's computer computing ability to achieve great progress, by the end of 19th century, Mechanical computers have been widely used in large-scale data processing.

So, Edmund Burke's original "Prophecy" has become quite reliable, after all, in his time, mechanical computers have emerged, "calculator" is the kind of talent that can control mechanical computers, rather than what we call "computer genius", As to whether his old man has predicted the appearance of electronic computers, it is another matter.