Geek: Lehmer sieves... I just ran across a reference to
these machines, invented in the early 20
th century by father and son mathematicians Derrick N. Lehmer and Derrick H. Lehmer. They are an early form of computer.
Lehmer's paper is here; I'm trying to wade through the math (without much luck yet :). What really caught my eye was the claim that one mechanical implementation could look at up to 5,000 possible solutions per second – that's awfully fast for something mechanical. There are lots of
images of them on the web...
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