29-604: The Nimatron was an electro-mechanical machine that played Nim . It was first exhibited in April–October 1940 by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation at the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair to entertain fair-goers. Conceived of some months prior by Edward Condon and built by Gerald L. Tawney and Willard A. Derr, the device was a non-programmable digital computer composed of electro-mechanical relays which could respond to players' choices in
58-569: A metal box, weighed over a metric ton. Westinghouse, on behalf of Condon, Tawney, and Derr, filed a patent application with the United States on April 26, 1940 and obtained it on September 24, 1940. The Nimatron was exhibited in the second half of the New York World's Fair in 1940. The game was a success with fair-goers, with Condon later stating that it was played over 100,000 times. The machine included counters for how many times it
87-627: A regular column, Jay Leno's Garage, starting in March, 1999. *In general, dates are the inclusive issues for which an editor was responsible. For decades, the lead time to go from submission to print was three months, so some of the dates might not correspond exactly with employment dates. As the Popular Mechanics web site has become more dominant and the importance of print issues has declined, editorial changes have more immediate impact. National Magazine Awards Other awards In 1999,
116-595: A set of electrical relays can be made to make a 'decision' in accordance with a fairly simple mathematical procedure." A similar, much smaller Nim-playing device was described in The American Mathematical Monthly in 1948 using different types of circuits, and was explicitly compared by the authors to the Nimatron. Despite the success of the Nimatron at the World's Fair, Condon later considered
145-492: Is a magazine of popular science and technology , featuring automotive , home, outdoor , electronics , science , do it yourself , and technology topics. Military topics, aviation and transportation of all types, space , tools and gadgets are commonly featured. It was founded in 1902 by Henry Haven Windsor , who was the editor and—as owner of the Popular Mechanics Company—the publisher. For decades,
174-598: The June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt , where three men, Frank Morris and John and Clarence Anglin, used the magazine as a reference to build life vests and a raft out of rubber raincoats and contact cement. Articles have been contributed by notable people including Guglielmo Marconi , Thomas Edison , Jules Verne , Barney Oldfield , Knute Rockne , Winston Churchill , Charles Kettering , Tom Wolfe and Buzz Aldrin , as well as some US presidents including Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan . Comedian and car expert Jay Leno had
203-602: The Nimatron was not viewed as a technological advancement but as an entertaining amusement; in an account of the fair, The New York Times placed it under a "novelty" subheading along with the exhibit of Elsie the Cow , the advertising icon of Borden . After the fair, the Nimatron was kept for some period of time at the Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science Building in Pittsburgh. The last known time it
232-887: The United States Joe Biden called "Things My Father Taught Me" for its fatherhood issue. Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook guest-edited the September/October 2022 of Popular Mechanics . The magazine is mentioned in the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street . In June 2020, following several high-profile takedowns of statues of controversial historical figures, Popular Mechanics faced criticism from primarily conservative commentators and news outlets for an article that provided detailed instructions on how to take down statues. In early December 2020, Popular Mechanics published an article titled "Leaked Government Photo Shows 'Motionless, Cube-Shaped' UFO." In late December, paranormal claims investigator and fellow of
261-732: The Windsor family and printed in Chicago until the Hearst Corporation purchased the magazine in 1958. In 1962, the editorial offices moved to New York City. In 2020, Popular Mechanics relocated to Easton, Pennsylvania , along with the additional brands in the Hearst Enthusiast Group ( Bicycling and Runner's World ). That location also includes Popular Mechanics' testing facility, called the Test Zone. From
290-477: The exhibition programmable digital computers began to be produced around the world by other companies and groups that used some of the same principles around storing digital information. The Nimatron is considered one of the first electro-mechanical games and a precursor to computer games, but its direct impact on digital computers and computer games is minimal. It may, however, have inspired the Nimrod computer, which
319-525: The fair-goers. The result, named Nimatron, was an early non-programmable digital computer , as it could retain the state of the game in binary and respond according to which mechanical switches were flipped, though no changes could be made without physically modifying the machine. The machine itself was designed and built by Gerald L. Tawney and Willard A. Derr, who worked in the relay division of Westinghouse. Although electronic vacuum tubes were faster than electro-mechanical relays at processing information,
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#1732791550126348-461: The first issue, the magazine featured a large illustration of a technological subject, a look that evolved into the magazine's characteristic full-page, full-color illustration and a small 6.5" x 9.5" trim size beginning with the July, 1911 issue. It maintained the small format until 1975 when it switched the larger standard trim size. Popular Mechanics adopted full-color cover illustrations in 1915, and
377-399: The front of the machine, as well as on four sides of a cube above the machine to allow spectators to follow the game. If the player won, the machine produced a token with the inscription "Nim Champ". The machine, described by Popular Mechanics as having 116 relays and over two miles of copper wire, and by The New York Times as being a robot eight feet tall and three feet wide, encased in
406-486: The game Condon proposed using, there are multiple sets of objects, and on each turn the player can only remove objects from a single set. Condon, who claims to have come up with the idea while talking to another employee on his lunch break, knew that mathematically the model could be expressed with the same binary notation that was used in the circuits for Geiger counters . The proposal was not intended to showcase any particular technology, but only to serve as entertainment for
435-406: The game in a dozen different patterns. The machine, which weighed over a metric ton, displayed four lines of seven light bulbs both in front of the player and on four sides of an overhead cube. Players alternated turns with the machine in removing one or more lights from one of the rows until the lights were all extinguished. The calculations were purposely delayed to give the illusion that the machine
464-520: The look was widely imitated by later technology magazines. Several international editions were introduced after World War II, starting with a French edition, followed by Spanish in 1947, and Swedish and Danish in 1949. In 2002, the print magazine was being published in English, Chinese, and Spanish and distributed worldwide. South African and Russian editions were introduced that same year. The march 1962 issue of popular mechanics magazine aided in
493-412: The machine as a failure because he had viewed it solely as an entertaining device without practical application and did not pursue anything further with the concept, but within years fully-programmable digital computers began to be created by other companies and groups using some of the same principles for storing and handling digital numbers. One such digital general-purpose computer was the Nimrod , which
522-426: The machine was designed and built with electro-mechanical relays as vacuum tubes were less robust and speed was not an issue. Even with relays, the machine was considered too fast; it could still make its turn in milliseconds as opposed to the microseconds it would have taken with vacuum tubes, which was felt to be demoralizing to players. The team added a delay relay to the game of a couple seconds to make it appear that
551-408: The machine was thinking about the move to make instead of the physical algorithm nearly instantly responding. The state of the game was represented with four columns of seven lights; on the player's turn they decided on a column to take lights from and pressed a button one or more times to turn out lights in that column, then pressed another to give the machine a turn. The set of lights were displayed on
580-492: The magazine published a book based on that article entitled "Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts," with a foreword by then senator John McCain . An October 2015 issue of Popular Mechanics , featuring director Ridley Scott , included an interactive cover that unlocked special content about Scott's film The Martian . In June 2016, the magazine ran a cover story with then-Vice President of
609-692: The magazine was a puzzle on Wheel of Fortune . In April 2001, Popular Mechanics was the first magazine to go to space, traveling to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz TM-32 spacecraft. In December 2002, an issue featured the cover story and image of "The Real Face of Jesus " using data from forensic anthropologists and computer programmers . In March 2005, Popular Mechanics released an issue dedicated to debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories , which has been used frequently for discrediting 9/11 "trutherism." In 2006,
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#1732791550126638-403: The second season. Edward Condon , a nuclear physicist and pioneer of quantum mechanics and an Associate Director of Research at the company, proposed making a machine that could play Nim . In Nim, players take turns removing at least one object from a set of objects, with the goal of being the player who removes the last object; gameplay options can be modeled mathematically. In the version of
667-559: The tagline of the monthly magazine was "Written so you can understand it." In 1958, PM was purchased by the Hearst Corporation, now Hearst Communications . In 2013, the US edition changed from twelve to ten issues per year, and in 2014 the tagline was changed to "How your world works." The magazine added a podcast in recent years, including regular features Most Useful Podcast Ever and How Your World Works . Popular Mechanics
696-443: Was considering moves, and winners received a token. The reception of the machine during the fair was positive, with around 100,000 games of Nim played. After the fair it was moved to the Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science Building in Pittsburgh. Despite this success, Condon considered the Nimatron a failure, because he had designed and intended it to be solely a piece of entertainment for fair-goers, but within years of
725-473: Was demonstrated at the 1951 Festival of Britain playing Nim using banks of lightbulbs like the Nimatron eleven years prior. The 1939 New York World's Fair was held in April—October 1939 and April—October of 1940, featuring exhibits from countries and companies worldwide. A major exhibitor was the Westinghouse Electric Corporation , and during the break in the fair it was looking for new exhibits to add for
754-719: Was demonstrated at the 1951 Festival of Britain running a program to play Nim using banks of lightbulbs as the output, and which may have been potentially inspired by the Nimatron. Electro-mechanical game Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.150 via cp1114 cp1114, Varnish XID 967918222 Upstream caches: cp1114 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 10:59:10 GMT Popular Mechanics 11.9M digital 5.69M print Popular Mechanics (often abbreviated as PM or PopMech )
783-410: Was founded in Chicago by Henry Haven Windsor, with the first issue dated January 11, 1902. His concept was that it would explain "the way the world works" in plain language, with photos and illustrations to aid comprehension. For decades, its tagline was "Written so you can understand it." The magazine was a weekly until September 1902, when it became a monthly. The Popular Mechanics Company was owned by
812-432: Was played and how many times the player had won, with the Nimatron winning 90,000 times. This count was skewed, however, by the operators of the machine; although it appeared complicated, the machine could only play the game in a dozen or so preset patterns, meaning that the operators could learn the patterns and beat the machine at any time in order to demonstrate the fair-goers that it could be done. As its creators intended,
841-916: Was presented outside the institute was in 1941 at a convention of the Allied Social Science Associations in New York City, with its exhibition sponsored by the American Statistical Association and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics . It is unknown how long it stayed on display, though as late as 1951 it was reported to still be present at the institute. The Nimatron was the first computing device dedicated solely to gaming. Condon claimed in an article for The American Mathematical Monthly in 1942 that "The Nimatron serves no other useful purpose than to entertain, unless it be to illustrate how
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