Some Writings of Allan Olley

For a full list of my conference talks, published book reviews and the like see my resume. Also, see my Google Scholar Profile for a useful summary. Here I will put some of my writings and works in progress for the record and hopefully to some benefit for fellow scholars:

A Task that Exceeded the Technology: Early Applications of the Computer to the Lunar Three-body Problem. This paper deals with the history of the three body problem on computers and earlier calculating technologies with some context in terms of preceeding astronomical theory and work. This is the Author Approved Manuscript that reflects the adjustments made after the paper received peer review, but it lacks some features of the published version including an extended summary in French. See it here in the form that I submitted to the journal without my response to peer review, corrections or some remarks from the editor. The official version was published in Revue de Synthèse, 139 (2018, 3-4), pp. 267-288 and is available (with subscription etc.) here.

Just a Beginning: Computers and Celestial Mechanics in the Work of Wallace J. Eckert My doctoral dissertation. This is the official version submitted as part of my doctoral degree.

"Existence Precedes Essence - Meaning of the Stored-Program Concept." This paper deals with some issues of taxonomy and historiography of early computers. Find it here in pdf format, slightly modified and revised from the published form. I may make a few further revisions, time permitting.
Note: © IFIP 2010. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of IFIP for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in IFIP ADVANCES IN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY, 325, ISSN 1868-4238, 2010, (Boston: Springer), pp. 169-178.
More information on the volume this work was published in, History of Computing: Learning from the Past, may be found either at the springer page or google books.

"Digitizing Measurement: Automating Scientific Table Making." This paper deals with some early attempts to partially automate various aspects of astronomical table making. This is slightly modified from the form it appeared in Proceedings of the XXVth Scientific Instrument Symposium: East and West the Common European Heritage, Jagiellonian University Museum, Krakow, Poland, 2006, pp. 289-293, which is copyright Jagiellonian University Museum. The conference proceedings may be on sale second-hand from Amazon and here is it's entry in World Cat.

Further writings to be posted as the opportunity arises.

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Reach me at allan.olley@alumni.utoronto.ca.

Last Updated February 23rd, 2023.