So Yuanbao asked his father, "What is that?"
Dad replied, "This is a plan." "
Yuanbao was puzzled and then asked his father, "How is this calculated?"
"Calculation, calculation is for calculation." Dad replied.
"calculation? Isn't there a calculator to calculate? Do you want to use a mobile phone? " Yuanbao said innocently.
Ah! This time, dad was stumped. Because as long as you answer, this conversation can't end. So my father came to the study and asked me for help. I don't think it's easy. Just find a book to tell the children about.
In this search, we found many books about the history of mathematics, but they are either too abstruse or too difficult to understand. Finally, we found a book suitable for our children. This book tells not only the calculation problems in history, but also the stories of smart people who solved these problems. It is also an encyclopedia introducing computational thinking. The book is divided into 14 chapters, covering many contents, from the appearance of computing to the invention of computers, to the development of artificial intelligence and the prospect of quantum computers.
This book is called A Brief History of Cleverness: Computational Thinking in History. This book is a large-format picture book with hand-drawn cartoons, interesting style, concise and bright text, including many shocking cross-page scenes and hundreds of beautiful illustrations, which is very suitable for parents and children to read together.
The story of "smart people" solving historical problems
Since ancient times, many intelligent people have emerged in the long river of human history, who have solved one problem after another with one invention.
Take calculation as an example. In the early days of mankind, people didn't know what mathematics was, so how did they calculate and record information? The Book of Changes says, tie the rope when things are big, and tie the rope when things are small. Knotting records the number of things, which is what we call "knotting records"
But gradually, people find this method too inconvenient. How many knots does a general need to tie when ordering troops on the battlefield? In a big orchard, the fruits on the fruit trees are ripe. How many knots can be used to count? Count the quantity of goods every time you cross the city gate. If there are more goods, will it be more than the goods?
As a result, the clever working people in ancient China invented "calculation and preparation". In ancient times, sour smell was a stick with the same length and thickness, generally 13- 14 cm long and 0.2-0.3 cm in diameter. It is made of bamboo, wood, animal bones, ivory, metal and other materials, and about 270 pieces are put in a cloth bag and hung around the waist.
When calculating, stick can be placed according to the rules, from right to left, vertically and horizontally, and any large natural number can be represented by calculation. Before the invention of abacus, China was the most primitive and effective computing tool.
After numerous precise calculations, the great mathematician Zu Chongzhi finally worked out a more accurate value of pi, accurate to the seventh place after the decimal point. In the history of the world, it was not until the 6th century A.D./KLOC-0 that Arab mathematicians broke this record.
Let's talk about the invention of computers. The scientific name of computer is electronic computer, which is developed from the early electronic calculator. In history, people began to try to make machines that can calculate automatically very early, but the electromechanical computers at that time were not only huge in size, but also complicated in calculation. Even if it takes several months to calculate the trajectory of a gun, soldiers on the battlefield can't wait that long.
So in 1946, the world's first general-purpose electronic computer ENIAC was born. With it, the trajectory can be calculated instantly. It has achieved a historic breakthrough in computing technology and helped people complete a lot of computing tasks.
But ENIAC is very big and its power consumption is amazing. At first, the programming of ENIAC needs to be completed by manually moving switches and connecting wires, and it takes one week to change the program at a time. In order to improve efficiency, engineers imagine putting both programs and data in memory. Mathematician von Neumann expounded this idea with mathematical language system, and put forward the binary representation of numbers and "von Neumann architecture", which laid the foundation of modern computer technology. Because von Neumann is also called "the father of modern computers".
These inventions not only promoted the progress of human civilization and science and technology, but also added many colors to human history.
The future is a highly computerized world.
With the accelerated development of global digitalization and informatization, having computational thinking is an important way of thinking in the future "computational society", and it is a bridge between human beings and computers and algorithms, so that human beings can better understand and communicate with the world of data and algorithms, and finally control data, algorithms and intelligence perfectly.
Take the examples mentioned in the book as an example. In 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic quickly swept the world. In order to effectively prevent the spread of the epidemic, community workers need to know the travel information of residents in the community. If you register manually, it will be slow and there will be omissions. So how can we get people's travel information quickly and accurately?
At this time, the programmer developed a "health code" program. It determines people's travel trajectory through the positioning information, payment information and ticket purchase information of mobile phones, thus escorting epidemic prevention and control.
Programmers used big data technology when they invented it. Big data contains a lot of useful information, just like a treasure buried in a mountain. People use mobile phones to generate a lot of data every day. Big data can not only record people's travel information, but also play a huge role in entertainment, sports, medical care and other fields.
These data are all completed through "cloud computing", which can help people quickly complete massive data analysis and reveal valuable information. On August 9th, 2006, eric schmidt, CEO of Google, put forward the concept of "cloud computing" for the first time at the search engine conference. "Cloud computing" is regarded as a revolution in the field of computer network. Because of its appearance, the working mode and business model of society are also undergoing tremendous changes.
It can be said that "cloud computing" is a great leap in the information age, and the future era may be the era of "cloud computing".
The problem solving thinking behind these inventions is computational thinking. It is this kind of thinking that constantly promotes the progress of history. As parents, we should not only think about creating wealth and a better life for our children, but more importantly, we can cultivate children's computational thinking from an early age, inspire their intelligence in scientific spirit and scientific literacy, and make it easier for them to solve problems in life when they grow up.
There is a big surprise at the end of the book. It puts the "intelligent timeline" into the same time river, which clearly shows the great role of computational thinking in history.
Every great invention is a witness to the evolution of human wisdom and mind, and it is the crystallization of human wisdom. From Shang and Zhou dynasties, to UNIX operating system, iPhone smart phone, to big data, artificial intelligence and so on. A Brief History of Cleverness: Computational Thinking in History helps children to establish a global cognition that spans time and space, and let them wander in the long history of computational thinking.