The use of computers in metallurgical education

The function of a digital computer is to carry out simple arithmetical operations at very high speed and with high accuracy, ie to eight or more significant figures. Before the computer can do this it must be given precise instructions, ie programmed. The situation is similar to that of giving instruction to the human operator of an electric calculating machine with the added advantage that the computer makes mistakes only very rarely. In addition, once the instructions have been written out, they can be given again and again to the computer as often as may be necessary without further effort by the programmer.