Object Details
- Description
- This red, cloth-covered paper box holds a set of 272 punched cards as well as two punch cards which have not been punched. On the top row of each card is printed, the exclusion modulus, the quadratic character of m (R for residual or N for nonresidual) and the value of a/m. A small gray pamphlet fits in the box with the stencils. The cards were published by the University of California Press.
- Raphael Robinson used these punched cards for his research in number theory before World War II. His interest in using devices to solve problems in number theory continued after the war. In 1952, he programmed the SWAC omputer at UCLA's Institute for numberical Analysis to calculate Mersenne primes, finding the first Mersenne primes discovered useing a computer. Several of his later papers also made use of computers.
- Reference:
- "Recent Mathematical Tables," Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation, vol. 2 #15, July, 1946, p. 124-125. This is a review by D. H. Lehmer. It is numbered 305 [F, Z].
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- Transfer from Smithsonian Institution Libraries
- 1940
- ID Number
- 1991.0287.01
- catalog number
- 1991.0287.01
- accession number
- 1991.0287
- Object Name
- Punch Cards, Set Of
- Physical Description
- paper (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 6.7 cm x 20.2 cm x 9.5 cm; 2 5/8 in x 7 15/16 in x 3 3/4 in
- place made
- United States: California, Berkeley
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Mathematics
- Punch Cards
- National Museum of American History
- Subject
- Mathematics
- Record ID
- nmah_694619
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a5-2ecf-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
