everything.study
STS.035

Exhibiting Science

2-2-8 units. HASS-A · Undergraduate

Project-based seminar covers key topics in museum communication, including science learning in informal settings, the role of artifacts and interactives, and exhibit evaluation. Students work on a term-long project, organized around the design, fabrication, and installation of an original multimedia exhibit about current scientific research at MIT. Culminates with the project's installation in the MIT Museum's Mark Epstein Innovation Gallery. Limited to 20; preference to students who have taken STS.034 .

Spring 2004 · The History of Computing

Topics

  • Introduction Course Overview
  • Issues in the History of Computing
  • Computers in Nuclear Physics: ENIAC and the Hydrogen Bomb
  • Computers in Meteorology: Simulating the World
  • Computers in Mathematics: The Logic Theorist and the Automation of Proof
  • Computers in Cognitive Psychology: GPS and Psychological Theory
  • Computers in Biochemistry: DENDRAL and Knowledge Engineering
  • Computers in Aerospace: The Apollo Guidance Computer
  • Computers in the Laboratory: The LINC Between the Designer and the User
  • Computers in Medicine: MYCIN and the Formalization of Expertise
  • Supercomputing at Home: A Social Experiment in Distributed Computing
  • Computers in Linguistics: Lost in Machine Translation
  • Computers in the Humanities: Hype, Text, and Hypertext
  • Final Paper Presentations

Readings

  • “ 2001: A Space Odyssey ” (1968). Directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick (excerpt). ↗
    Listed reading
  • Edwards, Paul N. “From ‘Impact’ to Social Process: Computers in Society and Culture.” Chapter 12 in Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. Edited by Sheila Jasanoff. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1994. ISBN: 9780803940215.
    Listed reading
  • Mahoney, Michael S. “The History of Computing in the History of Technology.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 10 (1988): 113-125.
    Listed reading
  • Kling, Rob. “Reading ‘All About’ Computerization: How Genre Conventions Shape Non-Fiction Social Analysis.” The Information Society 10, no. 3 (1994): 147-172.
    Listed reading
  • Galison, Peter. “Monte Carlo Simulations: Artificial Reality.” Chapter 8 in Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics. Chicago, IL and London, UK: University of Chicago Press, 1997, pp. 689-780. ISBN: 9780226279176.
    Listed reading
  • Kowarski, L. “The Impact of Computers on Nuclear Science.” In Computing As a Language of Physics. Edited by International Center for Theoretical Physics. Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency, 1972, pp. 27-37. LCCN: 73155630.
    Listed reading
  • “Giant Brains” (1992). Written, produced and directed by Fiona Holmes.
    Listed reading
  • Edwards, Paul N. “The World in a Machine: Origins and Impacts of Early Computerized Global Systems Models.” In Systems, Experts, and Computers. Edited by Thomas P. Hughes, and Agatha C. Hughes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000, pp. 221-254. ISBN: 9780262082853.
    Listed reading
  • ———. “Global Climate Science, Uncertainty and Politics: Data-laden Models, Model-Filtered Data.” Science as Culture 8, no. 4 (1999): 437-472.
    Listed reading
  • “Inventing the Future” (1992). Written, produced and directed by Nancy Linde.
    Listed reading
  • MacKenzie, Donald. “The Automation of Proof: A Historical and Sociological Exploration.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 17, no. 3 (Fall 1995): 7-29.
    Listed reading
  • ———. “Slaying the Kraken: The Sociohistory of a Mathematical Proof.” Social Studies of Science 29, no. 1 (February 1990): 7-60.
    Listed reading
  • Simon, Herbert A. “Climbing the Mountain: Artificial Intelligence Achieved.” Chapter 13 in Models of My Life. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1991, pp. 198-214. ISBN: 0456046401.
    Listed reading
  • “The Paperback Computer” (1992). Written, produced and directed by Jon Palfreman and Robert Hone.
    Listed reading
  • Edwards, Paul N. “Constructing Artificial Intelligence.” Chapter 8 in The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996, pp. 239-273. ISBN: 9780262050517.
    Listed reading
  • Newell, Allen, and Herbert A. Simon. “Computer Simulation of Human Thinking.” Science 134, no. 3495 (22 December 1961): 2011-2017.
    Listed reading
  • Newell, Allen. “Remarks on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Psychology.” In Theoretical Approaches to Non-numerical Problem Solving. Edited by R. B. Banerji, and M. D. Mesarovic. Berlin, and New York: Springer-Verlag, 1970, pp. 363-378 (excerpt). LCCN: 79121996.
    Listed reading
  • Frijda, Nico H. “Problems of Computer Simulation.” Behavioral Science 12 (1967): 59-67.
    Listed reading
  • Weizenbaum, Joseph. “Computer Models in Psychology.” Chapter 6 in Computer Power and Human Reason. New York: Penguin Books, 1984, pp. 154-181. ISBN: 9780140225358.
    Listed reading
  • “The Thinking Machine” (1992). Written, produced and directed by Jon Palfreman (Part I).
    Listed reading
  • Lenoir, Timothy. “Shaping Biomedicine as an Information Science.” In Proceedings of the 1998 Conference on the History and Heritage of Science Information Systems. Edited by Mary Ellen Bowden, Trudi Bellardo Hahn, and Robert V. Williams. Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc., 1999, pp. 27-45. ISBN: 9781573870801.
    Listed reading
  • Lederberg, Joshua. “How DENDRAL Was Conceived and Born.” In Proceedings of ACM Conference on the History of Medical Informatics. New York, NY: ACM, 1987, pp. 5-19. ISBN: 0897912489.
    Listed reading
  • Lindsay, Robert K., Bruce G. Buchanan, and Edward A. Feigenbaum. “DENDRAL: A Case Study of the First Expert System for Scientific Hypothesis Formation.” Artificial Intelligence 61 (1993): 209-261 (skim).
    Listed reading
  • Lederberg, Joshua. “Afterword: The Anti-Expert System — Thirteen Hypotheses an AI Program Should Have Seen Through.” In Artificial Intelligence and Molecular Biology. Edited by Lawrence Hunter. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993, pp. 459-463. ISBN: 9780262581158.
    Listed reading
  • Ceruzzi, Paul E. Chapter 6, “Minuteman, Apollo, and the Chip”, chapter 8, “Advances in Simulation, Testing, and Control”, chapter 9, “Software.” In Beyond the Limits: Flight Enters the Computer Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989. ISBN: 9780262530828.
    Listed reading
  • Hall, Eldon C. “From the Farm to Pioneering with Digital Control Computers: An Autobiography.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 22 (April-June 2000): 22-31.
    Listed reading
  • Hoag, David G. “ The History of Apollo On-Board Guidance, Navigation, and Control .” The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, P-357, September 1976, pp. 28. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Rosenfeld, Samuel A. “ Laboratory Instrument Computer (LINC): The Genesis of a Technological Revolution. " Seminar in Celebration of the Twentieth Anniversary of the LINC Computer, November 30, 1983. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Clark, Wesley. “The LINC was Early and Small.” In Proceedings of ACM Conference on the History of Medical Informatics. New York, NY: ACM, 1987, pp. 51-73. ISBN: 0897912489.
    Listed reading
  • Cox, Jerome R. “Recollections on the Processing of Biomedical Signals.” In Proceedings of ACM Conference on the History of Medical Informatics. New York, NY: ACM, 1987, pp. 95-103. ISBN: 0897912489.
    Listed reading
  • Forsythe, Diana E. “Engineering Knowledge: The Construction of Knowledge in Artificial Intelligence.” Social Studies of Science 23 (1993): 445-477.
    Listed reading
  • Forsythe, Diana E. “Blaming the User in Medical Informatics: The Cultural Nature of Scientific Practice.” In Studying Those Who Study Us: An Anthropologist in the World of Artificial Intelligence. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001, pp. 1-15. ISBN: 9780804742030.
    Listed reading
  • Duda, Richard O., and Edward H. Shortliffe. “Expert Systems Research.” Science 220, no. 4594 (April 15, 1983): 261-268.
    Listed reading
  • “The World at Your Fingertips” (1992). Written, produced and directed by Jon Palfreman and Robert Hone.
    Listed reading
  • Ross-Flanigan, Nancy. “The Virtues (and Vices) of Virtual Colleagues.” Technology Review (March-April 1998): 52-59.
    Listed reading
  • Waldrop, M. Mitchell. “Grid Computing.” Technology Review (May 2002): 31-37.
    Listed reading
  • Johnson, George. “Supercomputing ‘@Home’ Is Paying Off.” The New York Times (23 April 2003): F1.
    Listed reading
  • “ Bill Gates ” (1996). A&E’s Biography. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Hutchins, W. John. Chapter 2, “Precursors and Pioneers”; chapter 8, “Expectations and Criticisms”; chapter 19, “Present Developments and Some Future Prospects.” In Machine Translation: Past, Present, Future . Chichester, UK: Ellis Horwood, 1986. ISBN: 9780853127888. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Weizenbaum, Joseph. “The Computer and Natural Language.” Chap. 7 in Computer Power and Human Reason. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1984, pp. 182-201. ISBN: 9780140225358.
    Listed reading
  • Erard, Michael. “Translation in the Age of Terror.” Technology Review (March 2004): 54-60.
    Listed reading
  • “ Hackers ” (2001). Produced and directed by Neil Docherty. ↗
    Listed reading
  • van Dam, Andries. “Hypertext ‘87: Keynote Address.” Communications of the ACM 31, no. 7 (July 1988): 887-895.
    Listed reading
  • Beeman, Wiliam O., et al. “Hypertext and Pluralism: From Lineal to Non-lineal Thinking.” Proceeding of the ACM Conference on Hypertext. New York: ACM Press, 1989, pp. 67-88. ISBN: 089791340X.
    Listed reading
  • Raskin, Jef. “The Hype in Hypertext: A Critique.” Proceeding of the ACM Conference on Hypertext. New York: ACM Press, 1989, pp. 325-330. ISBN: 089791340X.
    Listed reading
  • Ruhleder, Karen. “Reconstructing Artifacts, Reconstructing Work: From Textual Edition to On-Line Databank.” Science, Technology, and Human Values 20, no. 1 (Winter 1995): 39-64.
    Listed reading
  • Crane, Gregory, et al. “The Symbiosis Between Content and Technology in the Perseus Digital Library. " Culture Interactive , no. 2 (October 2000).
    Listed reading
  • “ Desk Set ” (1957). Directed by Walter Lang (excerpt). ↗
    Listed reading

Prerequisites & course information

Prereq: One CI-H/CI-HW subject and permission of instructor U (Spring) Not offered regularly; consult department 2-2-8 units. HASS-A

Sources