Electrical Brain

In studying the behavior of complex electrical systems, it is frequently desirable to solve algebraic equations of the seventh or eighth degree--that is, equations containing terms raised to the seventh or eighth power. It is impossible to obtain formal, exact solutions of equations higher than the fourth degree. Approximate numerical solutions of equations of the fifth degree and up can be arrived at by laborious trial & error, trying one value, then another, and so on until a value is found which approximately fits the mathematical statement.

Described last week in the Franklin Institute's Journal was an electrical robot which, taking advantage of the differences between voltage phases, performs this trial & error in a few minutes instead of hours or days. Designed by Engineer Harry C. Hart and others of the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, it is a complex but small and neat layout of generators with movable stators, potentiometers, gears, cams, rectifiers, amplifiers, etc. Reduced to simplest terms, a series of potentiometers (low-resistance voltmeters) is set to correspond to the coefficients of the equations to be solved. A second series is geared together in the ratio of squares, cubes and higher powers. All the roots of an eighth-degree equation can be obtained in a half hour with a limit of error not greater than one or two per cent.

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