In the beginning of the article, he definitely recognizes that this piece does not necessarily apply to every single working scientist. For some, like biologists and medical scientists, nothing has really changed, and the ending of the war is certainly not going to change that. But for others, like physicists and other scientists who dealt directly with the war, the game has really changed. Dr. Bush goes on to say that science has provided mankind with the fastest forms of communication between individuals, thus making the flow of information and knowledge available to a broader group of peers, rather than to just a few individuals. Despite this new flow of information and new data that can be accumulated through the science community, he seems to think that the current methods of “transmitting and reviewing” the material gathered are by nature completely inadequate for their purpose (which considering this was written in 1945 I think we can all agree he’s correct). His main point he seems to be making behind all of this is that human history is created with important findings such as these that they were making; they needed to be well documented and compared with others around the world in order for them to be accepted. And further calling out to the booming economy of the time that had been set on making marketable products using assembly lines and other forms that brings thousands of little pieces together into one product or object.
In second section he seems to be really focused on how men of science have been recording their findings and then sharing them with the world in the simplistic fashions that they had at the time. He focuses a lot on simple camera use with the (I’m sure what was new then) universal focus method that has a shorter focal length and built in photo-cells. He theorizes about easy snapshots of scientific findings, a primitive form of “dry photography”, picture scanning, and microphotography. He takes it a step further in the third section when he talks about actually making the scientist data record with the use of more sophisticated machines than they had available in 1945. He suggests that authors will be able to talk directly to record, that would be transcribed automatically into a typed record by taking advantage of existing mechanisms like the Voder and Vocoder in order to alter his or her current language. After this he goes onto say that a machine like this could even be used to do arithmetic, business related math, and perhaps far into the future even differential, functional and integral equations.
In the fifth section of this article, he brings to light that scientists should not be the only interested party in these sorts of machines, but more-so used for anyone who uses logical processes of thought that requires information. The machines at the time were used primarily for problem solving, and Bush theorized that with the uses of transforming the mathematic equations that helped them solve problems into actual logic would soon be within their grasp in society. Thus making the machine ever-ready to help us find things that we want to know about, “We may someday click off arguments on a machine with the same assurance that we now enter sales on a cash register.”
The sixth section is I believe the most important section of this entire piece because, basically, Dr. Vannevar Bush just described a full on at-home computer system. He first speaks of how humans select the things that they are interested in learning more about or possibly spending money on. How the human brain operates by association, using one basic thought and moving instantly to another by a collection of different thoughts about whatever the former was. He goes onto say that man can probably never hope to completely duplicate this very mental process synthetically, but that we can certainly learn from it: “Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, 'memex' will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may b consulted with exceedcing speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory. It consists of a desk, and while it can presumably be operated from a distance, it is primarily the piece of furniture at which he works. On the top are slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for convenient reading. There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and levers. Otherwise it looks like an ordinary desk.”
My working theory is that this guy is from the year 1996 and used his limited computer knowledge to write this article. I’m just kidding, but holy shit; right down to the very desk and keyboard Dr. Bush had the idea for the modern-day computer and its functionality, as well as what we all use to upload and download information such as he described, known as the internet. Suggesting that these “memex” contents can be purchased and inserted into the memex itself. And that Books, pictures, periodicals, newspapers, and even videos can be viewed from it as the users disposal or pleasure.
He ends this article by once again suggesting that science can come up with new ways in which mankind produces, stores, and consults the human record. He recognizes that technical difficulties of all sorts have been ignored in the article, but does strongly suggest that these ideas may outline the instruments and machines of the future and at least give them a direction to go with. His conclusion seems to lie in hope that the human spirit should be wanting to review the past in order to study the flaws and create somewhat of a better future. It seems that ultimately he wants the human population to learn from its own wisdom and experience and rather than fight against each other learn to live and share together. Altogether rather optimistic ending, all in all though this article was incredibly interesting. I was kidding about the time machine, but Dr. Bush laid out what would be the foundations of the modern day internet with surprising accuracy considering the time period in which this was written. It puts our whole world wide web into perspective when you take a look at what our great grandfathers probably wanted us to do with it.
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