In 1849 Miss Mitchell was asked by the late Admiral Davis, who had just taken charge of the American Nautical Almanac, to act as computer for that work,a proposition to which she gladly assented, and for nineteen years she held that position in addition to her other duties.

(Indeed, it has been calculated that the energy required to power all the televisions and computers in America that are currently in sleep mode equals the output of an entire average-size power plant.)

Referring to the progress of the Numerical Lunar Theory: With a repetition of grant from the Treasury, I have usually maintained four junior computers on this work.

Under the head of General Remarks the following passage appears: 'The system of combining the labour of unattached computers with that of attached Assistants tends materially to strengthen our powers in everything relating to computation.

'As regards the operations for the Transit of Venus: The computing staff has by degrees been reduced to two junior computers within the Observatory; and one or two computers external to the Observatory, who are employed on large groups of systematic calculations.

The addition of a modem turned the computer into a broadcast facility.

Sitting in his chair, the zero-point of longitude for the world, he commands not only the little knot of observers and computers around him, but when he says to London, 'It is one o'clock,' London adopts that time, and her ships start for their voyages around the globe, and continue to count their time from that moment, wherever the English flag is borne.