Question

What does John Graunt have to do with big data?

How is the Jacquard Loom related to computer programming?

What are some examples of early (pre 1930s) big data sets

Answer 1

John Graunt (1620-1674) is considered by many historians to have founded the science of demography, the statistical study of human populations. He analyzed the vital statistics of the citizens of London and wrote a book regarding those figures that greatly influenced the demographers of his day and those in the centuries that followed. Graunt was honored for his work by being made a charter member of England's Royal Society, which was composed of prominent scientists.

Invented by Joseph Jacquard and demonstrated in 1801, the Jacquard Loom is an attachment for powered fabric looms. It uses a chain of punch cards to instruct the loom on how to make intricate textiles. For example, a loom could have hundreds of cards with holes in them that correspond to hooks that can be raised or lowered to make a textile brocade. Below is an illustration of the Jacquard Loom attachment on top of a textile loom.

The Jacquard Loom is important to the history of computers because it is the first machine to use interchangeable punch cards to instruct a machine to perform automated tasks. Having a machine that could perform various tasks is similar to today's computer programs that can be programmed to perform different tasks. The Jacquard Loom was also an inspiration to Charles Babbage planning to use perforated cards in his analytical engine. Herman Hollerith also used the idea of punch cards to not only store information but be used to input information into a computing device and is what help create the company IBM.

Today's textile looms no longer use punch cards. Instead, they can use a digital scanner to create a pixelated digital version of any image. This digital version is used to create instructions for the loom to make a textile version of the scan.

The Most easy is to understand example of Big Data before 1930 is the Census.
The timeline displays a pictorial history of data storage as early as the 1930s, when it began to explode, the introduction of computers, business breakthroughs, future data predictions and more.

It marks 1880s as the Start of Information Overload. The 1880 U.S. Census took eight years to tabulate. US Census is taken every 10 years and it was estimated that with the technology available then, the 1890 census would take more than 10 years. This led to the invention of the Hollerith Tabulating machine which was the precursor to IBM.

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