CULTURAL ROOTS OF TECHNOLOGY: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY OF AUTOMATED SYSTEMS FROM THE ANTIQUITY TO THE RENAISSANCE

The aim of this research work is to outline the history of proto-cybernetic systems throughout antiquity, Middle Ages and Renaissance. After identifying what are considered the main characteristics of an automaton, we examine all technical, literary, historical available sources, in order to get the descriptions not only of the actually built or designed automata, but also of the ones that were imagined in literary texts. From the work of historical reconstruction it has also been possible to make a classification of ancient automata, thanks to a UML representation of their operation. This classification of the types of automata and of the actions they could perform (or attributed to them) made it possible to build a matrix of distances of more than 200 automata (and of their features) with the Minkowski algorithm and consequently to get a philomemetic tree (with the software MEGA 4.0), which describes automata evolution over the period.

Grantor dc:publisher

Università degli Studi di Milano

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• N. Ambrosetti

Contributors dc:contributor

• tutor: Gianfranco Prini ; supervisore: Gianfranco Prini
• Giliola Barbero
• PRINI, GIANFRANCO

• storia dell'informatica
• automi
• cibernetica
• memetica
• UML
• automatica
• Erone di Alessandria
• pneumatica
• Settore INF/01 - Informatica

Statement dc:rights

• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

10.13130/ambrosetti-nadia_phd2011-03-24

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:air.unimi.it:2434/155494