An ingenious analogue computer
Douglas Hartree
Douglas Hartree was a theoretical physicist who developed powerful methods in numerical analysis. His initial interest in numerical methods arose from his work on anti-aircraft gunnery in 1916-18. He was professor of Applied Maths and Physics at Manchester University between 1929 and 1945.
Douglas Hartree built a machine to solve differential equations. This was before the days of digital computers when machines of this kind worked on analogue principles.
The first analyser was created with the help pf Meccano in 1934.
The full scale machine was engineered by Metropolitan Vickers and completed in 1935.
The photograph shows about half of the original machine. One of its applications was to analyse train running times but it had many other uses.
Submitted by: Andrew Hunt, 04 December 2003
