User:Natasa Siencnik/notes/bush/

Abstract

Vannevar Bush: As We May Think. In: The Atlantic Monthly. July 1945.

With his article As We May Think, published in 1945, Vannevar Bush is forecasting technical innovations and potentials of future media as is the personal computer and hypertext. Among other things he states, the Encyclopedia Britannica could be reduced to the volume of a matchbox, which has been achieved with the emergence of Wikipedia and moreover is not only stored as a record but also can be consulted unlimited. Storage should be organized by association rather than filed alphabetically or numerically and therefore create a new net of knowledge. A visionary of his time whose ideas have already been put into practice.

Key Points

1 –

• Of what lasting benefit has been man's use of science?
• increased control of mankind's material environment
• progressive freedom from disease and increasing span of life
• provided the swiftest communication between individuals
• specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress
• effort to bridge between disciplines is superficial
• signs of a change as powerful instrumentalities come into use
• machines can nowadays be constructed with little effort

2 –

• improvements in recording techniques
• example > future dry photography with immediate outcome
• example > microphotography that reduces size by full resolution
• microfilms are cheaper in production and easier in distribution

3 –

• author of the future may directly produce a typed record
• example Vocoder > loudspeaker is replaced by a microphone
• example stenotype > record in phonetically simplified language
• combination of both results in a machine which types when talked to
• need of a universal language which is better fitted to techniques
• forecasts a personal computer consistent of computing device, storage, printer

4 –

• far cry from the abacus to the modern keyboard accounting machine
• equal step to the arithmetical machine of the future

5 –

• scientist is not the only person who manipulates data and examines world
• opportunity for the machine when logical processes of thought are employed
• machine which will manipulate premises according with formal logic
• new symbolism to precede mathematical transformations to machine processes
• search patterns and classifications of future computing machines
• customer's identification card and cards for the articles in a department store
• forecasts chip cards for customers at stores, libraries etc.

6 –

• stored data is filed alphabetically or numerically
• information is found by tracing it down from subclass to subclass
• it can only be in one place, unless duplicates are used
• human mind works by association of thoughts
• selection by association, rather than indexing, may be mechanized

7 –

• associative indexing > essential feature of the memex
• user builds a trail of interest through the maze of materials available

8 –

• profession of trail blazers, who establish useful trails through information
• direct path by reducing information to electrical signals
• we have built a civilization so complex that we need to mechanize records