Jewish Invention Myths: The Mechanical Calculator/The Adding Machine
An interesting and fairly typical ‘jewish invention’ myth is the claim that they ‘invented’ the ‘Adding Machine’ – (1) a mechanical calculator to most people and the precursor to computers – which consists of identifying a jew named Abraham Stern as its inventor. (2)
The problem as usual is that this simply isn’t even remotely true.
The mechanical calculator/adding machine was actually invented in 1623 by German Lutheran theologian and astronomer Wilhelm Schickard. (3) Schickard was followed by French mathematician, philosopher and theologian Blaise Pascal’s own invention in 1642. (4)
Then German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz invented the ‘Liebniz Wheel’ in 1673 which was a much-improved mechanical calculator and the basis for future mechanical calculators and adding machines for over two centuries. (5)
Working from the ‘Leibniz Wheel’; (6) French inventor Thomas de Colmar patented his ‘Arithmometer’ in 1820 (7) and began manufacturing it in 1851, which represents the first mass-produced commercially successful mechanical calculator/adding machine. (8)
Clearly then Abraham Stern didn’t create or invent the mechanical calculator/adding machine but what is the truth about Stern?
Well Stern lived in Poland and was a jewish inventor who produced a series of mechanical calculators/adding machines from; the most advanced of which he demonstrated publicly at the ‘Societas Scientiarum Varsoviensis’ on 30th April 1817. (9)
Stern’s inventions were based almost entirely on ‘Liebniz’s Wheel’ as was de Colmar’s three years later. (10) The simple fact that is while Stern made several mechanical calculators/adding machines in early nineteenth century Poland; he was nearly two hundred years after they were invented and also used a non-jew’s invention as the basis for his own work.
So, no Abraham Stern didn’t invent the mechanical calculator/adding machine; Wilhelm Schickard did!
References
(1) https://boulderjewishnews.org/2009/an-informal-list-of-jewish-inventions-innovations-and-radical-ideas/
(2) https://christianislamicforum.wordpress.com/dedicated-to-our-jewish-brethren/
(3) https://web.archive.org/web/20140408215848/http://metastudies.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.SchicardvsPascal; Herman Goldstine, 1993, ‘The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann’, 2nd Edition, Princeton University Press: Princeton, p. 6
(4) https://web.archive.org/web/20140408215848/http://metastudies.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.SchicardvsPascal; Goldstine, Op. Cit., pp. 6-7
(5) Georges Ifrah, 2001, The Universal History of Computing’, 2nd Edition, John Wiley: New York, p. 125
(6) Goldstine, Op. Cit., p. 7, n. 10
(7) https://www.arithmometre.org/Brevets/PageBrevets.html
(8) https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/staff/saj/arithmometer/#note55
(9) Goldstine, Op. Cit., pp. 7-8, n. 10
(10) Ibid.