Predicting the Tides: Old Brass Brains
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- Опубликовано: 15 окт 2024
- Mechanical computers are complex machines designed to do various functions, but which worked entirely without electricity. Among the most interesting and complex was a machine used by the US Coast and Geodetic Survey, called affectionately “Old Brass Brains.”
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Script by JCG
#history #thehistoryguy #Computers
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When I aboard the USS IOWA, there was an analog targeting computer from WW II for the 16” guns that was more accurate than the digital one installed when she was brought out of mothballs.
From someone who went from being a navigator in the merchant marine, to a computer scientist, this is so fascinating.
Have you visited the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA? It rocks! They even had a working Babbage Difference Engine that I got to see/video!
you should check out veritasiums vid on mechanical computers then... if young, investing some time on analog computing will likely yield interesting results as these years tick on.
Thank you for your service.
@@stefanschleps8758 merchant marine is not part of the military. I just worked on board civillian cargo ships. The only military aspect is that the navy has the right to press us into service during war.
@@oliverlane9716You we’re still serving your country and people as much as it more than our military. Same with grocery clerks , librarians , doctors , road crews and fast food employees. If you have a blue collar job you are serving your country and it’s people .. whatever your nationality
As a retired Navy Sailor, part of my job was to assist with the safe navigation of the ship during special evolutions namely pulling in and out of ports. Had to deal with tides and currents, ebb and flow. During Amphibious operations, had to calculate the tides and wave heights for the Marine assault vehicles to land safely on the beaches
I'm fairly certain that was your job *before* you retired! 🤔😉
@@goodun2974 LOL. Yes, before I retired...
Thank you for your service!
Good old tide tables and quarter tenth method.
QM
It's also amazing the amount of analog computing put into some "Grandfather" clocks during the mid to late 1800's with lunar phases and such added to their complexities.
Fascinating things, amazing really! My grandmother had the nearest grandfather clock she got from her job as an anniversary gift.
I can't remember how many years it was. She worked that job, at that store, all of my life that she worked and most of my dad's. They worked there together I think in the late 70s, so maybe 25-35 year range.
Did not know that accurate tidal forecasts came so late. And I love that NOAA's keeping their faithful machine in running order.
And the extended outro was a real treat.
Old Brass Brains #2"is maintained in working condition at the NOAA facility in Silver Spring Maryland, where it can occasionally be viewed by the public at special Open House events.
I believe that the Smithsonian has machine #1 in it's collection. I should have saved the first IBM PC that we used to do the predictions. It took 20 minutes to predict 1 year with the 8087 math chip installed (2 hours without the 8087).
@@geofffrench1591 , When I Googled the subject to discover the fate of the machine, which appeared in the video here to be in a museum display, they did not mention the first "Brass Brain".
@@goodun2974 There is a picture of it on the wiki page, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide-predicting_machine
Designed by William Ferrel, completed in 1882.
Ah. I was wondering that. Thanks mate!
Great episode
As a former bike shop owner I couldn't help but notice that it used a bicycle chain .
The Wright brothers would've never flown without a the bicycle chain.I wonder how many other things the bicycle chain has changed in history ?
TINY versions were used in watches...!
You should do a piece on the electro-mechanical computers used aboard US Navy ships for ballistic calculations. These fire control computers weighed in at about 3000 pounds and were astounding accurate. They wereu sed before and throughout WWII and even into the late 80's and early 90's.
There are videos (training) on the subject in YT. Really cool.
And the TDC - Torpedo Data Computer - used on submarines. 👍
Certainly there were very clever and skilled technicians who designed and constructed these devices, each and every part carefully planned and fitted and then synchronised with the other components. I certainly appreciate looking at these machines and admire them having worked as an instrument technician for many years!
One thing that was missed on predicting the tide on Tarawa, was the "neap tide," an unusually low tide that left many landing craft stranded on reefs and required Marines to wade into shore through heavy machine gun fire
Talked about that in this episode: ruclips.net/video/hZpJJYbf1ms/видео.html
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel thx, I didn't know about Eddie Albert, but he's a true hero
@@kellyharbeson18 It's the solstice tides that are the highest and lowest.
As an amateur clockmaker, those closeups of Old Brass Brains made my heart beat faster. What a beautiful machine!
I assume, thetefore, that you make sure to take a sedative beforing watching any "ClickSpring" RUclips videos... :)
@@MisterMcHaos One of my favorite channels. I am so envious of his skills.
You find the most interesting, fascinating subjects to explore. I love these videos.
And now I can look at my watch and have instant tide information. It is amazing how far tech has advanced in a relatively short period of time.
Casio WS-1300H? Or an Apple watch?
@@TalenGryphon Garmin
As a Marine diving for artifacts around Beaufort SC in the late '80s, tidal charts were an absolute necessity. And after watching this I am personally convinced that some cheeky Marines used to call it "Old Brass Balls"... Don't ask me how I know.
As long as we are on the subject …the history of Naval Fire Control computing is also quite interesting..
Beat me to that one. My dad was a fire controlman on a destroyer in the Korean War.
There is an amazing WWII video teaching about the mechanicals of those computers on RUclips. I highly recommend it! Amazing stuff!
If you are ever at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, be sure to check out the mechanical tide computer with its own scale model of the Puget Sound. A plunger raises and lowers the water level based on the tide calculations, and you can inject dye at certain spots to observe the tidal flow. The various wheels and gears are visible along the wall at the end of the display.
A well preserved working tidal machine is on display in Ueno, Japan at the engineering and science museum there. Beautiful machine.
I grew up in a part of the world where the tides are about a foot. Most people, even many experienced boaters, fishermen and sailors, aren't even aware that we have tides here. Changes in air pressure and wind direction and strength affect the water level more than tides here, so the actual tidal range is masked by other factors. Always interesting to see how different it is in many other parts of the world.
Great Lakes?
@@TalenGryphon Not even the right continent. Let's just say somewhere in Northern Europe. But salt water, not a lake.
@mytube001 SALT water with almost no measurable tides? Hmm. So it would have to be an area with lots of channels, islands or an absurdly complex coastline acting as baffles to prevent fluctuations in water level. Northern Europe. And you mentioned fishermen so... Finland?
@@TalenGryphon Nope. I mean, as I mentioned, we do have tides, it's just that they're only about 20-30 cm, with a maximum of maybe 40 cm for an extreme spring tide.
No channels, large islands or absurdly complex coastline. In fact, the tidal range is the same tens of kilometers out from the coast, far from any islands. It's just the way the tidal nodes and resonances work. Some areas aren't as affected, while others are extremely affected. Do an image search on Google for "tidal range map europe" and you'll get a few search results that may surprise you.
Having previously only experienced the relatively small tidal changes on the east coast of North America, I was astounded by the high and low tides in the UK. Seven to ten meters (23 - 33 feet)! Absolutely incredible!
Looks as if the only “upgrade” Old Brass Brains required was the addition of an electric motor. No worries about viruses, either. Very impressive!
Thank you for the lesson.
Every so often NOAA gets a new supercomputer.
When it does the new supercomputer will be if not the fastest computer well within the top 10 for that year.
In school (80's) we learned about Babbage and Lovelace but nary a word about this amazing machine that made such an impact on the world.
Producing the timetables 4 years in advance is such an elegant way to shut corruption out. Very classy. 👌
The same mechanical / analog components, integrators, revolvers etc. were the used in the torpedo fire control systems of our WWII submarines. If only we had a working torpedo the Pacific conflict may have ended earlier. Narragansett Bay
Everyone in BuOrd connected in any manner with the word 'torpedo' should have been court martialed.
This was the most successful, important analog computer of all time, good to see it described in context so carefully.
I don't really want to argue that point but I am very surprised that no one has yet mentioned that most basic mechanical computer - the Slide Rule. It did, after all, do the calculations that put us into space and I believe onto the moon.
Tangential to tide computers, the women that did the calculations for early space flight were referred to as 'computers', i.e., those who compute.
Thanks for the great video. You really make quality videos that are fun to watch.
I want to compliment your oral presentations. You present images that aid the commentary, but the commentary is so well written and articulated and the descriptions detailed enough to be stand alone.
This is important to me because I can share them with a very good and well educated and talented friend who is interested in history.
He is also blind.
Thanks for creating something that is so interesting and informative and that is accessible to those who are usually not considered and forgotten in media production.
If you want to do a deeper dive into the technology, the engineerguy channel has a series of videos on how harmonic analyzers crunch numbers.
Great video. I'm going out on a limb and argue that the "Tide-Predicting Machine No. 2" is, in fact, a digital computer. It doesn't use binary digits (bits), but rather whatever radix was chosen for the gears.
There have been analogue electronic computers to predict tides. The Dutch built the "electronic model of watercourses" in 1954 and used it till 1961, when it was replaced by the Deltar, also an analogue electronic computer. The latter was used to compute the complex tides when building the Delta Works, after the disastrous storm surge of 1953. The Deltar was used until 1984.
Unfortunately, both have been dismantled, and only four modules of the Deltar remain. In that sense, the Americans took much better care of their past. It requires the insight to understand that what seems ordinary today will one day be a piece of history - that deserves to be both remembered and experienced.
I will always be amazed at the minds that can even compute in their brains at such levels, let alone build a machine that can to their work! . . . .Amazing!. I have as much respect for the makers of these old brass brains as I do for the owners of the old brass balls who fought and served for our country.
well yet another awesome video! thank you! i owned a small sailboat on lake Erie(no tide) yet i do appreciate navigating !
He consistently chooses interesting things to make his videos about. I really like this channel.
Coming from someone who worked on yachts and sailing vessels I find your video very informative. I've taken a number of trips up the east coast on sailing vessels and should the calendar have been turned back 125 years Old Brass Brains would surely have been welcome.
Fascinating... I love you History Guy.
THG,
I love your content that is so very detailed in each and every episode!
You intro’s are also wonderful to watch please 🎉❤
The dodge 48re still used a hydraulic analog computer in 2007. The electronics varied the governor pressure to fool the valve body into shifting at different points.
The Norden bombsight, used by US bombers, was also a mechanical computer. It cost $9,000 a copy at the outset.
By all measures the Norden was inferior to the Sperry bombsight. The Norden won out due to exaggerated claims by the company, and the fact it was an American company. Sperry was a multi-national company with ties to Germany.
Might be worth pointing out what a "computer" was back then - a human being whose work was doing mathematical calculations. These "computers" were mentioned 3 or 4 times during the narration.
Your comment is so ironic . . . lol . . I was thinking exactly that when listening to the references. I was thinking how today's generations are pretty much clueless as to the use of that word long before today's pc.
The film "Hidden Figures" is a prime example of this. A door with the word "computers" on the outside opened to a room of black women who did the calculations that took us to the moon.
@@catatonicbug7522 Yes, exactly. Don't remember what the tools of the trade were, I think adding machines was one, and they probably used those logarithmic and trigonometric tables we had to use when I was in high school. And maybe slide rules, but maybe not (only good to 3 significant figures). As you probably recall from the movie, they'd give them a task, and the output would be a report in the form of a thick booklet presented to the managers. And it would take them a long time to produce the output, and in that one case in the movie it was already obsolete by the time it was done, since things were moving so fast in the space program.
The Manhatten project was calculated by human calculators, mostly women PhDs, if memory serves me.
I had the pleasant opportunity to see this machine some years ago.
Fantastic story. Thanks!
Having myself worked at sea for several years, let me offer a special thank you for this one.
I think a school (MIT?) built one of Babbage's unbuilt computer a few years ago and it worked.
I never knew such a thing existed. Thank you!
I love old school mechanical computers like that!
The machine work involved in the creation of that is very cool
As late as 1972, I worked in a government office where we used geared machines to make calculations. We all had adding machines, with a hand crank, that you could use to add or multiply numbers. But only the supervisor had a machine that could divide numbers - which meant walking your numbers back to the supervisor and watching the machine literally "crank out" the result. Fortunately, it appears that early mechanical computers, like the astronomical and tide machines, mostly relied on sine wave-type calculations, which are easily performed using gears. (In contrast, sine wave calculations are a challenge for digital computers - something to be avoided if you want to compute a lot of numbers quickly.)
I learned statistical analysis using electro-mechanical calculators - entering x and y data points would yield x squared, y squared, x times y values as well as sums of x, y , x squared etc. etc. The lab I worked in had a couple older and smaller hand cranked calculators - one of which could be used to fine square roots.
AMAZING machines.
At the Deutches Museum, I saw an impressive German tide computer. It had a monolithic steel exterior, much wider than tall, painted a light green, with many similar looking dials.
Another outstanding video about yet another fascinating subject. Bravo!
Amazing! Thank you for producing this episode!
A couple days ago I ditched my iPhone in favor of my 1909 railroad pocket watch. It ticks, tocks, and loses half a minute a day. If you haven’t already, please do a segment on the history of watches. Such fun!
I miss pocket watches
I have my maternal grandfather's pocket watch. I took it to a jeweler to have it refurbished, and was told the cost of refurbishment was more than what the watch was worth. I told him that I didn't care as it belonged to the grandfather I never met.
It might have a regulating screw that lets you adjust it for accuracy. Those old railroad watches were both accurate and durable...
Might need servicing or adjustment. My Orient Tristar wristwatch loses under a minute per week
I’m not complaining about the half minute a day loss. I rather like it. Living things are imperfect. Modern watches are perfect dead things. IMHO.
Pretty cool stuff! Thanks for the video.
I was a mechanic my whole life. This was one fascination story for me. Thank You.
thankyou sir, love your channel would watch if just for your 'polite demeanour'! 👍
Great story and research.
The brains behind the wars. Interesting for sure. Thank you. I never would have known.
I appreciate you, thank you for making content.
I would have to posit that Mr. Geiger could tell a hell of a ghost story!
Utterly fascinating! Thanks very much, THG!
Thank you for sharing this piece of amazing history
That was super interesting. Thank you.
I'm so glad NOAA maintains the machine in working order. Mechanical analog computers were used for many things, one other is the targeting computer for the 16-inch guns on the Iowa-class battleships. It worked well enough that when the ships were brought out of mothballs in the 1980's the Navy ended up not updating the computers, as the cost would be great but the improvement in the end not so great.
That’s genuinely outstanding
That was absolutely amazing. Thank you.
Back in the Saddle Again Naturally
It's amazing how far we're NOT removed from the old ways; compared to how long the old ways were used.
Until the 1980's my grandmother would balance her final books and bills on a rather large and old mechanical calculator. She would punch in the numbers and pull back a lever reveling the sum on a receipt. I thought it an incredible work of machinery.
i used the tide tables but never knew how they were calculated
"You pull me like the moon pulls on the tide/you know just where I keep my better side...." Richard & Linda Thompson. Also this: " Have no fear for atomic energy/because none of them can stop the tide....." Bob Marley. (PS, the Thompson's song is the most gorgeous, beautiful yet bittersweet love song ever, a bit like "At the Dark End of the Street" but even more achingly heartbreaking).
Fascinating, thank you!
And then someone came up with the idea of daylight savings time and a gunshot was heard within the geodetic survey "computing" department.
Well done. Thank you.
Fascinating!
I recall seeing a series on the History Channel about the WW2 aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Enterprise. It was originally sponsored by Enterprise Rent-A-Car because the company's founder served on that ship. Anyway, that ship had radar-guided anti-aircraft guns; very accurate and deadly.
Who needs a supercomputer when you have an abacus?
Very true for arithmetic problems. Trigonometric, logarithmic, and exponential functions, however, are something of a challenge for an abacus. 😉
@@schroedingersdog7965 Lol
1st class....thanks for sharing
I hope they keep it in working order because one of these days the lights are going to go out and it's coming they're going to go out and they're going to stay out
Thank you for this one. Son of a sailor. 42-53
Incredible feat of ingenuity.
I had no idea there were mechanical computing devices that are centuries old!! Fascinating!
It is hard for the modern mind to appreciate the complexity of times passed. We so often say that things were "simpler back then." Maybe not.
Have you made something to cover the WWII code breakers, THG 🤔🤔
8:00
-Here is the latests, most advanced, the most recent machine... how shall we call it?
- *OLD* brass brains, obviously
❤️ this tidbit of early computers! Yet, let's at least mention Lovelace please? ❤️
ruclips.net/video/tbKgFWUMgIc/видео.html
One of my favorite analog computers.
Just a comment for the algorithm. I need to find out if THG has done a video on the development of clocks. This was excellent. My dad worked as a weather observer for NOAA.
I liked how at 7:15 AND 7:21 the captioning said 'feral machine'. I can imagine it snarling and snapping at the setters~
I guess you could call the new replacement "Old Sand Brains" Silicon replacing brass....LOL
Computers today still only do mathematical calculations. The video game you see on the screen is the result of those mathematical calculations.
I see that phaser on the shelf!
Found it on the charred body of a guy in a red shirt.
My father won a contract for a cruise missile loader design in 1985. I showed him how to design electronics, and at age 65 he designed an analog electronic computer using analog ICs with trig functions and multipliers.
I remember using a new algorithm on a 8bit MC68705 microcontroller. Each location had a few values that affected heights and times. It was acurate to the minute and centimeter. Had to use Binary coded decimal as floating point was useless.
Brass balls, now out of the ether I am made aware of brass brains. Stands to reason that somewhere out there, beyond the fog, is a complete brass man.
And his name is C-3P0
Thank you.🎶💥🌸
You didn't miss a beat describing the 'partial differential equations' as you did. PDE's was a sixth semester of Calculus for me. Have you been that far or farther?
I was watching one of your not-so-recent videos (on passenger pigeons) and I noticed a hat displayed on the wall behind you which I don't see in this video, but I wanted to ask you about. Am I seeing things or did/do you have a Salvation Army uniform hat? And, if so, how did you come across it? I'm fascinated! I'm not in The Salvation Army, but my parents were officers for over 30 years.
That is not actually a Salvation Army hat, but a hat from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. It never occurred to me before how similar the two look.
Oh my goodness! SO similar! That makes sense, though. The uniform was based on British military uniforms.
I use a ballistic calculator (for range estimation) that is, in effect, a slide rule.
The ingenuity of previous generations should not be underrated, nor the stupidity of the present one even with all the digital science and technology.
Thank you, THG. I feel like my nickname should be "Old Ass Brains", but I'm not as crank-ee.
lol, when I first read brass brains, I thought this would be about the Antikythera mechanism
And it kinda was.
And before brass brains, computer was a job (as in a person that does computation).