plate for forming Chladni images.
Fig.1: Chladni plate (above) for forming
Chladni images (Fig.2: Right).
Chladni plate images.
Lissajous' experimental equipment.
Fig.3: Lissajous’ experimental equipment for generating Lissajous figures.
Lissajous figures.
FIg.4: Lissajous figures
Diagrams of Williams tube and vector monitor.

The Binary number system, Leibniz, and the I Ching

Leibniz diagram of the binary numbers table.

Drawing of humanoid automaton.
Drawing of Vaucanson's duck automaton
Jacquard card-controlled weaving loom
  • that a sequence of operations of a machine could be pre-programmed and stored in a medium which could be placed into and removed from the machine so that the sequence could be altered easily. This is the concept of a programmable machine, and the second in graphics:
  • that an image of considerable detail could be worked into a grid (or raster) made up of vertical and horizontal lines having different colours at each point that a horizontal line (the weft) crosses a vertical line (the warp). This is the basis for the bit-mapped or raster graphics now ubiquitous in computing.

Fig.9: Jacquard card control of a loom.

Vaucanson's weaving loom.
Figs 10: Vaucanson’s loom. In the Centre National des Arts et Metiers, Paris. Photograph: Stephen Jones.
Jacquard cards.
Fig 11: Jacquard cards. Collection: Stephen Jones
Detail of the Jaqcuard mechanism.
Fig 12: Some detail of the Jacquard mechanism. The cards can be seen rising to the left to wrap around the box where the needles penetrate the holes in the cards. Those needles that have penetrated a hole then lift the warps on the loom so that the weaver can run the shuttle through between the raised and lowered warps thus adding another thread to the pattern. Jacquard Loom in the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester. Photograph: Stephen Jones.
Edward the 7th and Queen Alexandra in a Jacquard woven portrait.
Fig.13: King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in a Jacquard woven silk portrait. Collection: Stephen Jones.
Woven silk portrait of Joseph-Marie Jacquard.
Fig 14: Portrait of Joseph-Marie Jacquard. Collection of Allan Bromley. Now in the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney, NSW, collection.
collection of woven silk Stevengraphs
Fig 15: A collection of Stevengraphs from around 1870. Courtesy Allan Bromley. Photograph: Stephen Jones. Now in the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney, NSW, collection.
Japanese Temple as a Jacquard woven silk postcard.
Fig 16: Japanese Temple (probably Kiyomizu Dera in Kyoto) as a Jacquard woven silk postcard. Collection: Stephen Jones.
Jacquard woven cloth with gold threads.
Fig.17: Jacquard woven cloth with gold threads, contemporary. Collection: Stephen Jones.

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Return to Contents

  1. Chladni figures ↩︎
  2. Lissajous figures, also known as Lissajous curves ↩︎
  3. See Computer Art and the PDP-8 ↩︎
  4. Williams-Kilburn tube and its history ↩︎
  5. Gottfried Willhelm Leibniz biography ↩︎
  6. Ramon Llull ↩︎
  7. Lull, Ramon. (1517) Ars magna generalis et ultima… ed. Bernard de la Vinheta. Lyons: Jacob Marechal for Simon Vincent, 5 May 1517. 3rd Edition. The most accessible modern reference would be Martin Gardner’s Logic Machines and Diagrams, Chapter 1. [Gardner, 1958] ↩︎
  8. See: Swetz, Frank J (2003) “Leibniz, the Yijing, and the religious conversion of the Chinese” Mathematics Magazine; vol. 76, no.4, (Oct 2003) pg. 281. [Sadly on line copies of the work or locked under a financial hammer.] ↩︎
  9. Joachim Bouvet and Leibniz-Bouvet Correspondence, Translation and Annotations by Alan Berkowitz and Daniel J. Cook.. ↩︎
  10. ibid, p.284; and Ryan, James A. (1996) “Leibniz’ Binary System and Shao Yong’s Yi Jing” Philosophy East & West, vol.46, no.1, (January 1996), pp.59-90. It’s behind a paywall at JSTOR but this url might get it for you or you can sign up as an independent researcher. ↩︎
  11. Boole, George (1854) An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, on which are founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities, London: Walton and Maberly. ↩︎
  12. Leibniz, G.W. (1703) “Explication de l’arithmetique binaire, avec des remarques sur son utilite, et sur ce qu’elle donne le sens des annciennes figures Chinoises de Fohy”, Memoires de l’Academie Royale des Science, vol. 3 (1703), 85-89. ↩︎
  13. Leibniz, G.W. (1703) “Explication de l’arithmetique binaire …”, in Gerhardt, C.I. (1962) G.W. Leibniz Mathematische Schriften, vol.7, pp.223-227, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, p.224, (transl. Stephen Jones) ↩︎
  14. ibid. (transl. Stephen Jones). ↩︎
  15. Leibniz, G.W. (1679) De Progressione Dyadia, dated March 15, 1679, mentioned by Swetz (op cit, ref. 2). ↩︎
  16. Williams, Michael R. (1990) “Early Calculation” in Aspray, William (ed) (1990) Computing Before Computers, Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press. , pp.42-49. ↩︎
  17. Some of these may be seen in the Centre National des Arts et Metiers in Paris, though the duck is not there. (Its whereabouts are unknown.) Some of the Jaquet-Droz automata are in the Musée de Neuchâtel, Switzerland. ↩︎
  18. See: Brewster, David (1868) Letters on Natural Magic, London: William Tegg, pp.320-321 and Chapuis, Alfred and Droz, Edmond (1949) Les Automates: Figures Artificielles D’Hommes et D’Animaux: Histoire et Technique. Neuchatel, Switzerland: Editions du Griffon., pp.239-243. ↩︎
  19. Chapuis and Droz, 1949, op cit, pp.287-291. ↩︎
  20. Chapuis and Droz, 1949, op cit, pp.301-304. ↩︎
  21. Chapuis and Droz, 1949, op cit, pp.301. (translation: Stephen Jones) ↩︎
  22. One should also remember the Golem made from the clay of the Prague river by one Rabbi Loew in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in the 16th century. ↩︎
  23. Kennedy, Frank. “Joseph-Marie Jacquard” . Kennedy cites Chauvy, Bernard. Joseph-Maire Jacquard and the Weaving Revolution. and Decker, Rick and Hirschfield, Stuart. The Analytical Engine. PWS Publishing Company: Hamilton College, 1998. ↩︎
  24. Rouille, Philippe. (1993) “Trous de memoire (Memory gaps)” La Revue, Feb. 1993, no 2, p.34-41. Musée des Arts et Metiers. ↩︎
  25. Rothstein, Natalie (1977) “The Introduction of the Jacquard Loom to Great Britain” in Gervers, Veronika (ed) Studies in Textile History. In Memory of Harold B. Burnham. Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada. p.282. ↩︎
  26. Rouille, 1993, op cit, p.166. English translation by schindler@cnam.fr, 3 Oct. 1994. ↩︎
  27. Rothstein, 1977, op cit, p.281. ↩︎
  28. Rothstein, 1977, op cit, p.282. It was, after all, not that long since the Revolution and the wearing of anything ostentatious could well have been quite dangerous. ↩︎
  29. Babbage, Charles (1864) Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts and Green, p.117. It.is the nearest thing we get to an autobiography from Babbage. ↩︎
  30. Lovelace, Ada (1842) “Notes by the Translator to: ‘Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq.’ by L.F. Menabrea, in Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve, No.82. Oct.1842”. in Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs, Vol.III, pp.666-731: Note F “There is in existence a beautiful woven portrait of Jacquard, in the fabrication of which 24,000 cards were required.” Also in Bowden, B.V. (ed.) Faster Than Thought, A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines, New York, London, Toronto, Pitman Publishing Corporation, 1953, p.395. ↩︎
  31. See also plate 15, facing p.113 in Hyman, Anthony. (1982) Charles Babbage – Pioneer of the Computer. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ↩︎
  32. Menabrea later became the Prime Minister of Italy. It was this meeting that produced the Menabrea paper describing Babbage’s Analytical Engine for the Bibliotheque Unverselle de Geneve (October 1842). Ada Lovelace translated the paper into English and wrote her extensive “Notes by the Translator” for the translation when it was published in Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs. See Bowden, B.V. (ed.) (1953) Faster Than Thought. New York: Pitman, Appendix 1. The translation and the Notes demonstrate her very considerable mathematical understanding and she offered several insights into the future of analytical machines, including matters of programming, computer music and artificial intelligence. See Toole, Betty Alexandra. (1992) Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers, Mill Valley, California: Strawberry Press, pp. 257-8. ↩︎
  33. Moseley, Maboth (1964) Irascible Genius. A Life of Charles Babbage, Inventor. London: Hutchinson, p.142. ↩︎
  34. Babbage, 1864, op cit, p.169. Babbage rather gives the impression of being what one might now think of as a republican, however he seems to have quite taken to Albert, the Prince Consort. He relates a story of the Prince’s visit. Babbage showed him the portrait of Jacquard hanging in his drawing room. “When we had arrived in front of the portrait, I pointed it out as the object to which I solicited the Prince’s attention. “Oh! that engraving?” remarked the Duke of Wellington. “No!” said Prince Albert to the Duke; “it is not an engraving.” I felt for a moment very great surprise; but this was changed into a much more agreeable feeling, when the Prince instantly added, “I have seen it before.” I felt at once that the Prince was a “good man and true,” and I resolved that I would not confine myself to the rigid rules of etiquette, but that I would help him with all my heart in whatever line his inquiries might be directed.” ↩︎
  35. Babbage, 1864, op cit, p.118. ↩︎
  36. Babbage provides a detailed description of the Analytical Engine in Chapter VIII, pp.112-141 of his Passages from the Life of a Philosopher. [Babbage, 1864] ↩︎
  37. Janice Lourie developed the computer controlled Jacquard at IBM in the late 1960s and early 1970s. See Lourie, Janice and Bonin, A.M. (1968) “Computer-controlled textile designing and weaving.” Information Processing 68, Proceedings of IFIP Congress 1968, pp.884-891. Edinburgh, 5-10 August, 1968; and Lourie, Janice (1973) Textile Graphics/Computer Aided, New York: Fairchild Publications. ↩︎
  38. Lovelace, 1842, op cit. ↩︎
  39. Lovelace, 1842, op cit, Note A; reprinted in Bowden, 1953, p.365. ↩︎
  40. Lovelace, 1842, op cit. Note A, her emphasis; reprinted in Bowden, 1953, p.368. ↩︎
  41. eg, see. Lovelace, 1842, op cit, Note E; reprinted in Bowden, 1953, pp.386-395. ↩︎
  42. Godden, Geoffrey A. (1971) Stevengraphs and other Victorian silk pictures, Rutherford [N.J.] : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ↩︎
  43. Quarritch Rare Books catalogue 1301, Design and Innovation, notes to item 182, 2002. ↩︎