Complex calculations at extremely high speeds millionths of a second in some cases–will be possible on completion of the electronic computer now being constructed at the Weizmann Institute of Science, it was announced here today by the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute. The computer, with its 2, 500 vacuum tubes, will be built on the lines of the one now functioning at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N. J.
The machine will consist essentially of three organs. These are an electronic arithmetic organ, which will add, record and transfer numbers; an electronic control organ, which will “command” the foregoing operations to produce addition, subtraction, multiplication and division; and a memory organ, which will store thousands of numbers and instructions, and deliver them to the arithmetic organ on request.
According to the scientists now engaged in building it, the computer will be able to multiply or divide two numbers, each 12 decimal digits long, and produce the answer in 1,000th part of a second. The same size numbers can be added in approximately a 25, 000th part of a second.
The Weizmann Institute computer will have a basic “vocabulary” of 20 different instructions, or basic arithmetical operations. Any problem that can be broken down into these basic arithmetical operations–addition, subtraction, multiplication and division–and is capable of a solution, can be done on the machine. The Princeton computer can, for example, produce in approximately one hour the answers to problems which would take three years to complete on an electric desk calculator working an eight-hour day.
Principal features of the Weizmann Institute computer now in construction are its high speed arithmetic organ and automatic control circuits, which are capable of working with any of the types of “memories” used with high-speed computing machines. The machine is being constructed under the leadership of Dr. Gerald Estrin, from the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, who is 1953-54 Louis Lipsky Exchange Fellow at the Weizmann Institute. Cooperating with him is Dr. Ephraim Frei, of the Weizmann Institute, who spent two years at Princeton with Prof. John von Neumann’s electronic computer group.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
