WEIZAC
The
WEIZAC or
Weizmann Automatic Computer, an early computer built by the
Weizmann Institute in
Israel, was based on the
Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) architecture developed by
John von Neumann. As with all computers of its era, it was a one of a kind machine that could not exchange programs with other computers (even other IAS machines). The computer was built in
1954 and operated until the
1964. Later, the institute built more advance computers, like the GOLEM I in 1964 and the GOLEM II in
1972.
The WEIZAC was used to study problems like worldwide chages in tide, and it took hundreds of hours to to any problem. The computer found out that there was a point in the south Atlantic at which the tide doesn't change. The computer also calculated the relationship between a
helium nucleus and its two electrons and yielded results that were experimentally confirmed by the
Brookhaven National Laboratory (but no
general solution exists for the "three body problem" of which this is a
special case). The computer solved a problem to see how
earthquakes worked and to test a theory about the internal structure of the earth.