Niagara Falls and the Origins of Computer Algebra

Abstract

The present note intends to show some connections arising from an investigation around the origins of Computer Algebra, which starts from the first explicit appearances of this field in the decade of the 80’s of the past century, takes us back to previous work done by Charles Babbage and the Spanish engineer Torres–Quevedo in relation to their analytic and algebraic machines, runs briefly through Kempe’s work on universal linkages, and ends up in the Canadian shore of the Niagara Falls, relatively close to Waterloo (ON), birthplace of some relevant decisions concerning the development of the Computer Algebra research community and home of the mathematical software Maple.

From the Steam Engine to STEAM Education: An Experience with Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers

“…Or, in a very different framework, that of the history of technology, linkages can be regarded as relevant objects of research throughout the 19th century, towards the design of linkages with some specific performance, a challenge that is behind the advancement of the steam machine technology, or is related to the foundations of computers, as detailed in [26][27][28] and the references therein, which include mentions of some illustrious scientific characters such as Babbage, Kempe, Chebyshev, Sylvester, Cayley or Poincare.…”

“…For details about the specific approach, content and examples concerning linkages and their educational role that have been presented during the lectures that took place in our experience, we refer the reader to the references [27,28], which develop and illustrate with images the above-mentioned interactions.…”