The Invisible Mentor

Archive for the ‘Innovative Thinkers’ Category

This is a new feature on The Invisible Mentor blog. Today, we have to go deep and wide in our knowledge to remain relevant, deep in our area of expertise, and wide by knowing a little bit about many things. Adventures in Learning are meant for both you and me to pick up some pearls of wisdom from people who are masters in their fields – we want to have great conversation starters at events, but we also want ideas that we can transport from one field to another. We start off with Gene Waddell who is an architectural historian and College Archivist at the College of Charleston.

Avil Beckford: What is Architecture? 

Gene Waddell: Architecture is how buildings are designed and constructed.

Avil Beckford: What are three things we need to know about architecture? 

Gene Waddell:

1. The best spaces are versatile and well lighted.
2. The best designed buildings have interiors and exteriors that relate well to one another, a clear pattern of circulation, generously proportioned spaces, good ventilation, and meticulous details.
3. The best constructed buildings are the most permanent and require the least maintenance. 

Avil Beckford: How has architecture shaped civilization? 

Gene Waddell: Good buildings inspire people to greater achievements. They make life easier and more enjoyable.  They protect possessions including books and help to preserve knowledge. 

Avil Beckford: What trends in the architectural field are shaping the future? 

Gene Waddell: More lessons need to be learned from the most durable and versatile buildings of all time and applied to future buildings.  Unreinforced concrete with a brick facing has proven to be the best way to achieve the most permanent buildings. Buildings and bridges made with reinforced concrete or steel frames are already needing to be replaced.

Buildings that are expensive to maintain, to renovate, and to air condition are not economical no matter how little they cost to build.  Buildings with no ventilation are unhealthy.  Buildings designed for too specific a function soon become obsolete.

Questions

• What ideas can we take from what Waddell has told us to use in our areas of expertise?
• If we look at the three qualities of the best buildings, could we apply it to the best products? Are the best products versatile, easy to use, and work well with others?
• We just learned about the characteristics of the most durable and versatile buildings, what makes the systems we use for work more versatile and durable?

Waddell created a list of books that inspire learning for Against the Grain. I am actually reading books from the list right now. You can get many of the books for free from Project Gutenberg, and if you do not have a Kindle, there are multiple formats for you to download. Also, Amazon has Kindle apps that you can download, I have the Kindle App for the PC.

Using Rare Books to Inspire Learning —Part 1: Anthropology – Diaries

Using Rare Books to Inspire Learning — Part 2: Drama – Travel 

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Cover of The Hunger Games

This is what we talked about on The invisible Mentor Blog this week: Reading list for this Summer 2011, Review of Catching Fire and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, Ada Lovelace the First Computer Programmer and Interview with Patty DeDominic.

Mondays at the Salon

A list of books to keep you busy this summer.

The Invisible Mentor Summer 2011 Reading List

Booked on Tuesdays

We previously reviewed The Hunger Games and today we review the last two instalments: Catching Fire and Mockingjay in The Hunger Games trilogy.

Review: Catching Fire and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Wisdom Wednesdays

In this profile, you’ll learn about Ada Lovelace the first computer programmer. Ada was a visionary and over a century ahead of her time.

Ada Lovelace, First Computer Programmer.

Perspective Thursdays and Workshop Fridays

This week we featured Patty DeDominic a very successful businesswoman. She always operates with high integrity. Patty started an international women’s festival, celebrated around International Women’s Day (March 8th) to honour the accomplishments and potential of women. Here are Part One and Part Two of Patty DeDominic’s interview.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate links.

Ada Lovelace was the first computer programmer, and a woman ahead of her time. Most may not know this, but I have a computer science diploma from Mount Royal College in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and one of my majors for my Bachelor of Commerce Degree is Management Information Systems. Even though I had computer science training I have never worked in the field. During my computer science studies, we learned about Charles Babbage, who designed a machine that would do many of the things that today’s computer does, and Ada Lovelace wrote the computer program for Babbage’s Analytical Engine. Lovelace was unable to test her computer program because it was never built. The machine was a century ahead of its time – the technology did not exist to build it. Lovelace made such a mark on the world that a day is named for her – Ada Lovelace Day.

Image via Wikipedia

Name: Ada Augusta King, Countess of Lovelace

Birth Date: December 1815 – November 1852

Job Functions: Early-nineteenth-century English mathematician and scientist

Field: Mathematics and Computer Science

Known For: First computer programmer, best known for her work with Charles Babbage, an early pioneer in computing machines.

Mentors: Charles Babbage, Mary Fairfax Somerville

Ada Lovelace was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron. Very shortly after Lovelace’s birth, her mother, an amateur mathematician left her husband. As an amateur mathematician, Lady Byron ensured that her daughter had a solid education by developing her intellect. Lovelace studied reading, grammar and spelling, arithmetic, music, geography, drawing, and French. When she was 17 years old, she met Charles Babbage at a party hosted by Mary Fairfax Somerville. At that party, Babbage was demonstrating how to use his Difference Engine, a prototype he had built to show the idea behind his Difference Engine concept. When Lovelace saw the machine, it was love at first sight. She studied the machine very closely until she understood how it worked.

After a failed attempt to elope with her teacher, Lovelace decided to focus on her education and decided to seriously study science. She was a very smart young lady and quickly outgrew her tutors, so she continued to teach herself. In addition to her self-education she corresponded with informal tutors such as mathematician Mary Somerville and improved her mathematical skills.

The following year she got married, and within the first four years of marriage, Lovelace had three children. She loved her children dearly, but lamented because she could not pursue her intellectual interests.

Her mother, Lady Byron, an amateur mathematician, and her husband, William King, Earl of Lovelace searched for ways for her to pursue her academic interests since her desire was so strong. Lady Byron and William King made it happen for Lovelace. In 1940, the year after the birth of her third child, Lovelace returned to her study of mathematics with Augustus De Morgan, a famous British logician and mathematician. She was an impressive and keen student because she had an affinity for the subject. During that same year, Charles Babbage whom she had met at a party a few years earlier, gave a series of talks in Turin, to scientists about his Difference Engine, and his new Analytical Engine, which could be programmed by encoding instructions on punched cards.

Luigi Federico Menabrea, an Italian military engineer, summarized Babbage’s series of talks in a French article in the journal Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève. It was very difficult for Menabrea to adequately describe how the machine would work because the Analytical Engine didn’t exist, so all he had to rely on were drawings of the machine. The article was subsequently published in 1942.

Through a family friend, Charles Wheatstone, developer of the electric telegraph, Lovelace learned about Luigi Menabrea’s article. Wheatstone wanted her to translate the article from French to English for the prestigious British journal Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs. Lovelace started her translation project with zeal. When Babbage learned of what Lovelace was doing, he wanted her to write an entirely new article instead. She declined his request, but offered to add extensive “Notes” to bring Menabrea’s article up-to-date. There were seven notes in all – labelled A through G and the added notations were three times the length of the original article.

Among other things, her “Notes” explained the differences between the Difference Engine and the new Analytical Engine, and other similar machines on the market. It also included detailed steps of how Babbage’s Analytical Engine worked, explained the concept of computer memory, and presented what is now known in computer programming as a loop or subroutine (If-Then-Else, Do-For). Lovelace introduced the idea of “garbage in, garbage out” (The output of the computer is only as good as its input) and also detailed how the machine could be programmed to compute the calculation of Bernoulli numbers (According to Wikipedia, Bernoulli numbers the sums of powers of consecutive integers; named after Swiss mathematician Jacques Bernoulli (1654–1705)). The detailed plan she outlined is now regarded as the first computer program.

Without the actual machine to study, to ensure success of her now expanded translation project, Lovelace used information and formulas supplied by Babbage to determine where the calculations would go into the machine and where the answers would be displayed. Since the machine did not exist, and was never built because the technology did not exist in the early 1800s to create such a machine, Lovelace couldn’t test her computer software program to determine if it worked. Her “Notes” has secured her a place in history, and Ada Lovelace is considered to be the first computer programmer.

Her ideas and deep insights in the “Notes” about the capabilities of an Analytical Engine became a reality in computers in the Twentieth Century, and that’s a testament that she had a solid understanding of the implications for Babbage’s invention. Much later after her death, her program was tested and it had a few bugs in it, but I am confident that had Lovelace had access to a working Analytical Engine, she would have been able to debug her computer program. It is worthy to note that based on the drawing and specifications of Babbage’s design, The London Science Museum later built the machine and it did exactly what Babbage wanted his Analytical Engine to do, which show s that his ideas were sound.

Babbage and Lovelace had a disagreement about publishing the manuscript. Even though they resolved their differences, they never worked together again. For the next few years, Lovelace focused on various fields of science, reading German books, and corresponding with prominent English scientists. Her only other big scientific contribution was a book review of a French book on meteorology and agriculture, which she wrote jointly with her husband.

What you can learn from Ada Lovelace

• Her ideas were over 100 years before their time.
• She went against traditional Victorian society by studying mathematics which was a discipline few women attempted.
• Lovelace knew how to work the system. Her husband who was 11 years her senior, was very supportive of her academic endeavours, though people of their class felt pursuing such interests were beneath them. To live in both worlds, Lovelace signed her Notes A.A.L. Thirty years after the paper was published her full name appeared as the paper’s author.
• She also predicted the use of mechanical mathematical devices for such purposes as music composition and the production of graphics.
• Lovelace’s tutors fostered her early interest in systems as well as her desire to understand how things worked.

Lovelace did not obtain widespread recognition until the historian, Lord B.V. Bowden, rediscovered her “Notes” in 1952 and had them reprinted the following year – 110 years after their original publication. In 1980, the United States Department of Defense named its Ada programming language after her.

Interesting Information: Even though Lord Byron didn’t get to see his daughter again after his wife left him, he wrote about her in some of his poems.

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: Canto the Third (excerpt)

George Gordon Lord Byron (1788-1824)

Is thy face like thy mother’s, my fair child!

Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart?

When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smil’d,

And then we parted–not as now we part,

But with a hope.–Awaking with a start,

The waters heave around me; and on high

The winds lift up their voices: I depart,

Whither I know not; but the hour’s gone by,

When Albion’s lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.

Source: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/344.html

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Further Reading

Ada Lovelace Day 2011 – Innovation and Gaming

Works Referenced

Computer Sciences

Encyclopedia of World Biography

New Dictionary of Scientific Biography

Mathematics

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Related articles

• Ada Lovelace Day: Celebrate Women in Technology (GeekDad Wayback Machine) (wired.com)
• Ada Lovelace Day of the Day (geeks.thedailywh.at)
• Wisdom of Life: Charles Babbage, Father of the Computer</li>

Name: Margaret Mead

Birth Date: December 1901 – November 1978

Job Functions: Anthropologist, Researcher, Professor, Curator, Author and Globetrotter

Fields: Anthropology

Known For: Studies of culture and personality, child socialization, gender, generational differences, cultural change, and applied anthropology.

Image via Wikipedia

Mentors: Ruth Benedict and Franz Boas

Most Famous Publications: Coming of Age in Samoa and Keep Your Powder Dry were national bestsellers.

Margaret Mead had a non-traditional upbringing. Both of her parents worked, her father, Edward Sherwood Mead was an economist at the Wharton School of Business and her mother, Emily Fogg Mead was a social scientist. By the time she was 11 years old, she had moved 60 times and consumed meals prepared by 107 cooks because her father was instrumental in establishing extension branches of the Wharton School across the state of Pennsylvania.

Her mother Emily, and her paternal grandmother, Martha Ramsey Mead a child psychologist, were very hands-on when it came to Margaret’s education at home. She was directed to “collect data for observation and recording – from the structure of leaves to the language patterns and personality differences of her younger siblings could be noted as data.” She observed how other children behaved and took notes on their behaviours. Though her father Edward played a less active role in her upbringing, his discussions with her about his work instilled in her an understanding of using case studies to generalize.

Before Mead became a teenager, she had already accompanied Emily on field trips where she was “engaged in sociological research among Italian immigrants.” From a young age, it was instilled in Mead the importance of not discriminating against others because of their race. She acquired a respect for human equality and differences. The instruction Margaret received from both her mother, grandmother and father allowed her to cultivate the skills she later relied on as an anthropologist.

In her senior year at college, Mead took a course in anthropology taught by Franz Boas. The course profoundly impacted her so much that she decided to become an anthropologist. After she completed her studies she went to study the life of adolescents among the Polynesian on a six-week field trip. She later moved to the island of Ta’u and remained there for nine months where she studied 68 Samoan girls ages eight to 20, with an emphasis on 25 of these females. Five years later she published her work in Coming of Age in Samoa, which became a national bestseller and catapulted her into worldwide fame.

Mead conducted many more field trips which she also published in book form. For her early research, she did not exercise scientific rigor, which she was criticized for after her death. Her third husband Gregory Bateson, who came from a family of natural scientists, changed that for her, and he enhanced Mead’s methodology and scientific rigor for conducting her research. And Bateson also learned from her more about the observation process.

Bateson and Mead did some innovative work when they used photography as a research tool. While they worked in Bali for two years, they took 38,000 photographs, 759 of which were selected for their book Balinese Character in 1942. The extensive use of film in their work allowed them to record and analyze even the smallest detail of behaviour which would escape the pen-and-paper ethnographer.

During Margaret Mead’s life, she wrote close to 30 books, edited another 12, conducted 24 field trips with major expeditions, gave at least a hundred speeches each year, contributed hundreds of articles, received 28 honorary degrees in humanities, science and law, received 40 distinguished awards for science and citizenships, was president of seven professional organizations, wrote a column for Redbook magazine (1961 – 1978), frequently appeared on talk shows and was one of the most sought after lecturers in the United States. Other body of works she left behind include films, records and tapes.

When Margaret Mead died, the media dubbed her the “grandmother of the world.”

Why Margaret Mead’s work was important

She was the first anthropologist to examine child-rearing practices and the role of women in cross-cultural perspective. She believed that social behaviour, including gender roles were determined by cultural forces and set out to prove it. And most important, she brought anthropology to the public by writing a column in a popular magazine and appearing on talk radio.

Events that shaped Margaret Mead’s life

• Undoubtedly, having Emily Fogg Mead as a mother, and Martha Ramsey Mead as a grandmother helped to shaped Mead’s life because of the instruction they provided.
• Mead’s training under Franz Boas at Columbia University prepared her for the work she did. Franz Boas who was the Dean of American Cultural Anthropology was willing to train women fieldworkers including Ruth Benedict, who became Mead’s lifelong confidante.

Controversial Ideas

Mead also had some very controversial ideas, three of which were:

1. Newlyweds should purchase divorce insurance.
2. An ideal society should consist of people who were homosexual in their youth, heterosexual in middle age, and homosexual again in later years.
3. Instead of the nuclear family, she advocated for “cluster” units comprised of older married couples, singles, and teenagers from other households.

A previous post written in 2009 Can a Group of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens Make a Difference? Margaret Mead Thought So complements this one.

If you cannot view Coming of Age YouTube video please click here.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Further Reading

Can a Group of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens Make a Difference? Margaret Mead Thought So

Margaret Mead By Jone Johnson Lewis, About.com Guide  December 16, 2010

Sources Cited/Referenced

American National Biography

International Encyclopedia of Women Scientists

Women in World History

Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia

Dictionary of Women Worldwide

Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science

Encyclopedia of World Biography

Image via Wikipedia

He scratched his head, and had a puzzled look on his face. “Galen’s (Claudius Galenus) theory makes no sense, and from what I have seen Andreas Vesalius hasn’t made any significant changes. If I am to believe Galen that blood is made in the liver from food which acts as fuel that the body uses up, then that would mean there would we constant refuelling. There is simply no way that the heart can produce the quantities of blood that is needed to support Galen’s theory. As a scientist, what I think makes more sense is that the blood circulates through the body via the heart. I am going to dedicate the time to prove my theory.”

Name: William Harvey

Birth Date: April 1578 – June 1657

Job Functions: Physician

Fields: Biology, Physiology & Medicine

Known For: Founder of Modern Experimental Physiology. Proved blood circulated in the body via the heart.

Problem: In the second century, the physician Galen postulated that blood was used up therefore the body required food to keep a constant supply. William Harvey thought it was impossible for the heart to produce the quantities of blood required to support such a theory.

Solution: William Harvey conducted repeated experiments dissecting animals and conducting post mortem examinations on humans to disprove Galen’s theory.

Born on April 1, 1578 in Folkstone, Kent, William Harvey studied at King’s School in Canterbury, Caius College in Cambridge and under Fabricius ab Aquapendente in Padua. He graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in 1600. Harvey was appointed as a physician to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. He was also appointed as physician to King James I and Elizabeth in 1618, and to King Charles I in 1630.

For over a decade, William Harvey conducted “Experimental analysis of the movement of the heart and blood establishing that in systole the heart actively contracts in all dimensions, expelling its contained blood as a muscular pump.” He conducted the experiments by performing post mortem examinations on humans, and dissecting animals. Harvey was very careful, and his experiments were repeatable.

Why Harvey’s work is important

William Harvey was the first person to use quantifiable and verifiable methods in natural sciences. He paid a price and lost some of his patients. At one point his peers rejected him because of his radical departure from the status quo. What he postulated was very different from the popular theory put forward by Galen from the 2^nd Century. Because his experience was repeatable, they came around, and modern medicine was born. Fortunately his work gained acceptance during his lifetime.

Like most innovative thinkers, William Harvey built on the work of others. In this instance he disproved Galen’s and Andreas Vesalius’ work. Vesalius worked on Galen’s work but made no significant improvements. Harvey published his conclusion from the experiments in An Anatomical Study of the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals.

Though Harvey is best known for his work on blood circulation, he also spent most of his professional life working on understanding the reproduction of animals. In On the Generation of Animals, Harvey explained that “Female mammals carried eggs which were somehow spurred into reproduction through interaction with the male’s semen.” The proof to his theory came two centuries later.

Key Lessons

• If you are innovator and decide to take the path less travelled, chances are you will be ridiculed.
• You are likely to lose clients and customers if your peers ridicule and criticize you because you upset the status quo.
• Set standards by which to judge things, and also to take things up a notch. Harvey conducted careful experiments and repeated them and checked the results against each other.
• You don’t have to be one who follows the status quo.
• Look at what’s been done before and don’t reinvent the wheel.
• There are always ways to improve a process, product or service

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Sources Referenced

• Biographical Dictionary of Science
• Encyclopedia of World Biography
• Quantum Leaps: 100 Scientists Who Changed the World
• Books That Changed The World: The 50 Most Influential Books in History