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AS WE MAY THINK
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by VANNEVAR BUSH
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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, JULY 1945
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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As Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Dr.
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Vannevar Bush has coordinated the activities of some six thousand
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leading American scientists in the application of science to warfare.
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In this significant article he holds up an incentive for scientists
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when the fighting has ceased. He urges that men of science should
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then turn to the massive task of making more accessible our
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bewildering store of knowledge. For many years inventions have
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extended man's physical powers rather than the powers of his mind.
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Trip hammers that multiply the fists, microscopes that sharpen the
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eye, and engines of destruction and detection are new results, but the
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end results, of modern science. Now, says Dr. Bush, instruments are
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at hand which, if properly developed, will give man access to and
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command over the inherited knowledge of the ages. The perfection of
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these pacific instruments should be the first objective of our
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scientists as they emerge from their war work. Like Emerson's famous
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address of 1837 on ``The American Scholar,'' this paper by Dr. Bush
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calls for a new relationship between thinking man and the sum of our
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knowledge. - The Editor
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
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This has not been a scientist's war; it has been a war in which all
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have had a part. The scientists, burying their old professional
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competition in the demand of a common cause, have shared greatly and
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learned much. It has been exhilarating to work in effective
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partnership. Now, for many, this appears to be approaching an end.
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What are the scientists to do next?
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For the biologists, and particularly for the medical scientists, there
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can be little indecision, for their war work has hardly required them
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to leave the old paths. Many indeed have been able to carry on their
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war research in their familiar peacetime laboratories. Their
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objectives remain much the same.
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It is the physicists who have been thrown most violently off stride,
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who have left academic pursuits for the making of strange destructive
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gadgets, who have had to devise new methods for their unanticipated
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assignments. They have done their part on the devices that made it
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possible to turn back the enemy. They have worked in combined effort
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with the physicists of our allies. They have felt within themselves
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the stir of achievement. They have been part of a great team. Now,
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as peace approaches, one asks where they will find objectives worthy
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of their best.
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1
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Of what lasting benefit has been man's use of science and of the new
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instruments which his research brought into existence? First, they
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have increased his control of his material environment. They have
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improved his food, his clothing, his shelter; they have increased his
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security and released him partly from the bondage of bare existence.
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They have given him increased knowledge of his own biological
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processes so that he has had a progressive freedom from disease and an
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increased span of life. They are illuminating the interactions of his
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physiological and psychological functions, giving the promise of an
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improved mental health.
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Science has provided the swiftest communication between individuals;
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it has provided a record of ideas and has enabled man to manipulate
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and to make extracts from that record so that knowledge evolves and
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endures throughout the life of a race rather than that of an
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individual.
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There is a growing mountain of research. But there is increased
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evidence that we are being bogged down today as specialization
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extends. The investigator is staggered by the findings and
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conclusions of thousands of other workers - conclusions which he
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cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember, as they appear. Yet
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specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress, and the
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effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial.
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Professionally our methods of transmitting and reviewing the results
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of research are generations old and by now are totally inadequate for
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their purpose. If the aggregate time spent in writing scholarly works
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and in reading them could be evaluated, the ratio between these
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amounts of time might well be startling. Those who conscientiously
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attempt to keep abreast of current thought, even in restricted fields,
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by close and continuous reading might well shy away from an
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examination calculated to show how much of the previous month's
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efforts could be produced on call. Mendel's concept of the laws of
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genetics was lost to the world for a generation because his
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publication did not reach the few who were capable of grasping and
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extending it; and this sort of catastrophe is undoubtedly being
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repeated all about us, as truly significant attainments become lost in
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the mass of the inconsequential.
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The difficulty seems to be, not so much that we publish unduly in view
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of the extent and variety of present-day interests, but rather that
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publication has been extended far beyond our present ability to make
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real use of the record. The summation of human experience is being
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expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading
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through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the
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same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships.
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But there are signs of a change as new and powerful instrumentalities
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come into use. Photocells capable of seeing things in a physical
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sense, advanced photography which can record what is seen or even what
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is not, thermionic tubes capable of controlling potent forces under
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the guidance of less power than a mosquito uses to vibrate his wings,
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cathode ray tubes rendering visible an occurrence so brief that by
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comparison a microsecond is a long time, relay combinations which will
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carry out involved sequences of movements more reliably than any human
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operator and thousand of times as fast - there are plenty of
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mechanical aids with which to effect a transformation in scientific
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records.
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Two centuries ago Leibnitz invented a calculating machine which
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embodied most of the essential features of recent keyboard devices,
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but it could not then come into use. The economics of the situation
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were against it: the labor involved in constructing it, before the
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days of mass production, exceeded the labor to be saved by its use,
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since all it could accomplish could be duplicated by sufficient use of
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pencil and paper. Moreover, it would have been subject to frequent
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breakdown, so that it could not have been depended upon; for at that
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time and long after, complexity and unreliability were synonymous.
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Babbage, even with remarkably generous support for his time, could not
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produce his great arithmetical machine. His idea was sound enough,
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but construction and maintenance costs were then too heavy. Had a
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Pharaoh been given detailed and explicit designs of an automobile, and
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had he understood them completely, it would have taxed the resources
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of his kingdom to have fashioned the thousands of parts for a single
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car, and that car would have broken down on the first trip to Giza.
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Machines with interchangeable parts can now be constructed with great
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economy of effort. In spite of much complexity, they perform reliably.
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Witness the humble typewriter, or the movie camera, or the automobile.
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Electrical contacts have ceased to stick when thoroughly understood.
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Note the automatic telephone exchange, which has hundred of thousands
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of such contacts, and yet is reliable. A spider web of metal, sealed
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in a thin glass container, a wire heated to brilliant glow, in short,
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the thermionic tube of radio sets, is made by the hundred million,
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tossed about in packages, plugged into sockets - and it works! Its
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gossamer parts, the precise location and alignment involved in its
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construction, would have occupied a master craftsman of the guild for
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months; now it is built for thirty cents. The world has arrived at an
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age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is
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bound to come of it.
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2
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A record, if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously
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extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted.
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Today we make the record conventionally by writing and photography,
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followed by printing; but we also record on film, on wax disks, and on
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magnetic wires. Even if utterly new recording procedures do not
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appear, these present ones are certainly in the process of
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modification and extension.
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Certainly progress in photography is not going to stop. Faster
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material and lenses, more automatic cameras, finer-grained sensitive
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compounds to allow an extension of the minicamera idea, are all
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imminent. Let us project this trend ahead to a logical, if not
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inevitable, outcome. The camera hound of the future wears on his
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forehead a lump a little larger than a walnut. It takes pictures 3
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millimeters square, later to be projected or enlarged, which after all
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involves only a factor of 10 beyond present practice. The lens is of
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universal focus, down to any distance accommodated by the unaided eye,
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simply because it is of short focal length. There is a built-in
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photocell on the walnut such as we now have on at least one camera,
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which automatically adjusts exposure for a wide range of illumination.
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There is film in the walnut for a hundred exposures, and the spring for
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operating its shutter and shifting its film is wound once for all when
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the film clip is inserted. It produces its result in full color. It
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may well be stereoscopic, and record with spaced glass eyes, for
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striking improvements in stereoscopic technique are just around the
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corner.
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The cord which trips its shutter may reach down a man's sleeve within
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easy reach of his fingers. A quick squeeze, and the picture is taken.
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On a pair of ordinary glasses is a square of fine lines near the top
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of one lens, where it is out of the way of ordinary vision. When an
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object appears in that square, it is lined up for its picture. As the
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scientist of the future moves about the laboratory or the field, every
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time he looks at something worthy of the record, he trips the shutter
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and in it goes, without even an audible click. Is this all fantastic?
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The only fantastic thing about it is the idea of making as many
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pictures as would result from its use.
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Will there be dry photography? It is already here in two forms. When
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Brady made his Civil War pictures, the plate had to be wet at the time
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of exposure. Now it has to be wet during development instead. In the
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future perhaps it need not be wetted at all. There have long been
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films impregnated with diazo dyes which form a picture without
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development, so that it is already there as soon as the camera has
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been operated. An exposure to ammonia gas destroys the unexposed dye,
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and the picture can then be taken out into the light and examined.
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The process is now slow, but someone may speed it up, and it has no
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grain difficulties such as now keep photographic researchers busy.
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Often it would be advantageous to be able to snap the camera and to
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look at the picture immediately.
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Another process now in use is also slow, and more or less clumsy. For
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fifty years impregnated papers have been used which turn dark at every
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point where an electrical contact touches them, by reason of the
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chemical change thus produced in an iodine compound included in the
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paper. They have been used to make records, for a pointer moving
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across them can leave a trail behind. If the electrical potential on
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the pointer is varied as it moves, the line becomes light or dark in
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accordance with the potential.
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This scheme is now used in facsimile transmission. The pointer draws
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a set of closely spaced lines across the paper one after another. As
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it moves, its potential is varied in accordance with a varying current
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received over wires from a distant station, where these variations are
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produced by a photocell which is similarly scanning a picture. At
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every instant the darkness of the line being drawn is made equal to
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the darkness of the point on the picture being observed by the
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photocell. Thus, when the whole picture has been covered, a replica
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appears at the receiving end.
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A scene itself can be just as well looked over line by line by the
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photocell in this way as can a photograph of the scene. This whole
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apparatus constitutes a camera, with the added feature, which can be
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dispensed with if desired, of making its picture at a distance. It is
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slow, and the picture is poor in detail. Still, it does give another
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process of dry photography, in which the picture is finished as soon
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as it is taken.
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It would be a brave man who could predict that such a process will
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always remain clumsy, slow, and faulty in detail. Television
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equipment today transmits sixteen reasonably good images a second, and
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it involves only two essential differences from the process described
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above. For one, the record is made by a moving beam of electrons
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rather than a moving pointer, for the reason that an electron beam can
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sweep across the picture very rapidly indeed. The other difference
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involves merely the use of a screen which glows momentarily when the
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electrons hit, rather than a chemically treated paper or film which is
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permanently altered. This speed is necessary in television, for
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motion pictures rather than stills are the object.
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Use chemically treated film in place of the glowing screen, allow the
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apparatus to transmit one picture rather than a succession, and a
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rapid camera for dry photography results. The treated film needs to
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be far faster in action than present examples, but it probably could
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be. More serious is the objection that this scheme would involve
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putting the film inside a vacuum chamber, for electron beams behave
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normally only in such a rarefied environment. This difficulty could
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be avoided by allowing the electron beam to play on one side of a
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partition, and by pressing the film against the other side, if this
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partition were such as to allow the electrons to go through
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perpendicular to its surface, and to prevent them from spreading out
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sideways. Such partitions, in crude form, could certainly be
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constructed, and they will hardly hold up the general development.
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Like dry photography, microphotography still has a long way to go.
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The basic scheme of reducing the size of the record, and examining it
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by projection rather than directly, has possibilities too great to be
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ignored. The combination of optical projection and photographic
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reduction is already producing some results in microfilm for scholarly
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purposes, and the potentialities are highly suggestive. Today, with
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microfilm, reductions by a linear factor of 20 can be employed and
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still produce full clarity when the material is re-enlarged for
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examination. The limits are set by the graininess of the film, the
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excellence of the optical system, and the efficiency of the light
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sources employed. All of these are rapidly improving.
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Assume a linear ratio of 100 for future use. Consider film of the
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same thickness as paper, although thinner film will certainly be
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usable. Even under these conditions there would be a total factor of
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10,000 between the bulk of the ordinary record on books, and its
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microfilm replica. The Encyclopoedia Britannica could be reduced to
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the volume of a matchbox. A library of a million volumes could be
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compressed into one end of a desk. If the human race has produced
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since the invention of movable type a total record, in the form of
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magazines, newspapers, books, tracts, advertising blurbs,
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correspondence, having a volume corresponding to a billion books, the
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whole affair, assembled and compressed, could be lugged off in a
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moving van. Mere compression, of course, is not enough; one needs not
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only to make and store a record but also to be able to consult it, and
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this aspect of the matter comes later. Even the modern great library
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is not generally consulted; it is nibbled by a few.
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Compression is important, however, when it comes to costs. The
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material for the microfilm Britannica would cost a nickel, and it
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could be mailed anywhere for a cent. What would it cost to print a
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million copies? To print a sheet of newspaper, in a large edition,
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costs a small fraction of a cent. The entire material of the
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Britannica in reduced microfilm form would go on a sheet eight and
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one-half by eleven inches. Once it is available, with the
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photographic reproduction methods of the future, duplicates in large
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quantities could probably be turned out for a cent apiece beyond the
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cost of materials. The preparation of the original copy? That
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introduces the next aspect of the subject.
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3
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To make the record, we now push a pencil or tap a typewriter. Then
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comes the process of digestion and correction, followed by an
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intricate process of typesetting, printing, and distribution. To
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consider the first stage of the procedure, will the author of the
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future cease writing by hand or typewriter and talk directly to the
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record? He does so indirectly, by talking to a stenographer or a wax
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cylinder; but the elements are all present if he wishes to have his
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talk directly produce a typed record. All he needs to do is to take
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advantage of existing mechanisms and to alter his language.
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At a recent World Fair a machine called a Voder was shown. A girl
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stroked its keys and it emitted recognizable speech. No human vocal
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cords entered in the procedure at any point; the keys simply combined
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some electrically produced vibrations and passed these on to a
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loud-speaker. In the Bell Laboratories there is the converse of this
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machine, called a Vocoder. The loudspeaker is replaced by a
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microphone, which picks up sound. Speak to it, and the corresponding
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keys move. This may be one element of the postulated system.
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The other element is found in the stenotype, that somewhat
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disconcerting device encountered usually at public meetings. A girl
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strokes its keys languidly and looks about the room and sometimes at
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the speaker with a disquieting gaze. From it emerges a typed strip
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which records in a phonetically simplified language a record of what
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the speaker is supposed to have said. Later this strip is retyped
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into ordinary language, for in its nascent form it is intelligible
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only to the initiated. Combine these two elements, let the Vocoder
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run the stenotype, and the result is a machine which types when talked
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to.
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Our present languages are not especially adapted to this sort of
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mechanization, it is true. It is strange that the inventors of
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universal languages have not seized upon the idea of producing one
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which better fitted the technique for transmitting and recording
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speech. Mechanization may yet force the issue, especially in the
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scientific field; whereupon scientific jargon would become still less
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intelligible to the layman.
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One can now picture a future investigator in his laboratory. His
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hands are free, and he is not anchored. As he moves about and
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observes, he photographs and comments. Time is automatically recorded
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to tie the two records together. If he goes into the field, he may be
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connected by radio to his recorder. As he ponders over his notes in
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the evening, he again talks his comments into the record. His typed
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record, as well as his photographs, may both be in miniature, so that
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he projects them for examination.
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Much needs to occur, however, between the collection of data and
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observations, the extraction of parallel material from the existing
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record, and the final insertion of new material into the general body
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of the common record. For mature thought there is no mechanical
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substitute. But creative thought and essentially repetitive thought
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are very different things. For the latter there are, and may be,
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powerful mechanical aids.
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Adding a column of figures is a repetitive thought process, and it was
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long ago properly relegated to the machine. True, the machine is
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sometimes controlled by the keyboard, and thought of a sort enters in
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reading the figures and poking the corresponding keys, but even this
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is avoidable. Machines have been made which will read typed figures
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by photocells and then depress the corresponding keys; these are
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combinations of photocells for scanning the type, electric circuits
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for sorting the consequent variations, and relay circuits for
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interpreting the result into the action of solenoids to pull the keys
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down.
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All this complication is needed because of the clumsy way in which we
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have learned to write figures. If we recorded them positionally,
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simply by the configuration of a set of dots on a card, the automatic
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reading mechanism would become comparatively simple. In fact, if the
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dots are holes, we have the punched-card machine long ago produced by
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Hollorith for the purposes of the census, and now used throughout
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business. Some types of complex businesses could hardly operate
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without these machines.
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Adding is only one operation. To perform arithmetical computation
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involves also subtraction, multiplication, and division, and in
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addition some method for temporary storage of results, removal from
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storage for further manipulation, and recording of final results by
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printing. Machines for these purposes are now of two types: keyboard
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machines for accounting and the like, manually controlled for the
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insertion of data, and usually automatically controlled as far as the
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sequence of operations is concerned; and punched-card machines in
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which separate operations are usually delegated to a series of
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machines, and the cards then transferred bodily from one to another.
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Both forms are very useful; but as far as complex computations are
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concerned, both are still embryo.
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Rapid electrical counting appeared soon after the physicists found it
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desirable to count cosmic rays. For their own purposes the physicists
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promptly constructed thermionic-tube equipment capable of counting
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electrical impulses at the rate of 100,000 a second. The advanced
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arithmetical machines of the future will be electrical in nature, and
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they will perform at 100 times present speeds, or more.
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Moreover, they will be far more versatile than present commercial
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machines, so that they may readily be adapted for a wide variety of
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operations. They will be controlled by a control card or film, they
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will select their own data and manipulate it in accordance with the
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instructions thus inserted, they will perform complex arithmetical
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computations at exceedingly high speeds, and they will record results
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in such form as to be readily available for distribution or for later
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further manipulation. Such machines will have enormous appetites.
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One of them will take instructions and data from a roomful of girls
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armed with simple keyboard punches, and will deliver sheets of
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computed results every few minutes. There will always be plenty of
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things to compute in the detailed affairs of millions of people doing
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complicated things.
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4
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The repetitive processes of thought are not confined, however, to
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matters of arithmetic and statistics. In fact, every time one
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combines and records facts in accordance with established logical
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processes, the creative aspect of thinking is concerned only with the
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selection of the data and the process to be employed, and the
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manipulation thereafter is repetitive in nature and hence a fit matter
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to be relegated to the machines. Not so much has been done along
|
|
these lines, beyond the bounds of arithmetic, as might be done,
|
|
primarily because of the economics of the situation. The needs of
|
|
business, and the extensive market obviously waiting, assured the
|
|
advent of mass-produced arithmetical machines just as soon as
|
|
production methods were sufficiently advanced.
|
|
|
|
With machines for advanced analysis no such situation existed; for
|
|
there was and is no extensive market; the users of advanced methods of
|
|
manipulating data are a very small part of the population. There are,
|
|
however, machines for solving differential equations - and functional
|
|
and integral equations, for that matter. There are many special
|
|
machines, such as the harmonic synthesizer which predicts the tides.
|
|
There will be many more, appearing certainly first in the hands of the
|
|
scientist and in small numbers.
|
|
|
|
If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of
|
|
arithmetic, we should not get far in our understanding of the physical
|
|
world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely
|
|
by the use of the mathematics of probability. The abacus, with its
|
|
beads strung on parallel wires, led the Arabs to positional numeration
|
|
and the concept of zero many centuries before the rest of the world;
|
|
and it was a useful tool - so useful that it still exists.
|
|
|
|
It is a far cry from the abacus to the modern keyboard accounting
|
|
machine. It will be an equal step to the arithmetical machine of the
|
|
future. But even this new machine will not take the scientist where
|
|
he needs to go. Relief must be secured from laborious detailed
|
|
manipulation of higher mathematics as well, if the users of it are to
|
|
free their brains for something more than repetitive detailed
|
|
transformations in accordance with established rules. A mathematician
|
|
is not a man who can readily manipulate figures; often he cannot. He
|
|
is not even a man who can readily perform the transformation of
|
|
equations by the use of calculus. He is primarily an individual who
|
|
is skilled in the use of symbolic logic on a high plane, and
|
|
especially he is a man of intuitive judgment in the choice of the
|
|
manipulative processes he employs.
|
|
|
|
All else he should be able to turn over to his mechanism, just as
|
|
confidently as he turns over the propelling of his car to the
|
|
intricate mechanism under the hood. Only then will mathematics be
|
|
practically effective in bringing the growing knowledge of atomistics
|
|
to the useful solution of the advanced problems of chemistry,
|
|
metallurgy, and biology. For this reason there will come more
|
|
machines to handle advanced mathematics for the scientist. Some of
|
|
them will be sufficiently bizarre to suit the most fastidious
|
|
connoisseur of the present artifacts of civilization.
|
|
|
|
5
|
|
|
|
The scientist, however, is not the only person who manipulates data
|
|
and examines the world about him by the use of logical processes,
|
|
although he sometimes preserves this appearance by adopting into the
|
|
fold anyone who becomes logical, much in the manner in which a British
|
|
labor leader is elevated to knighthood. Whenever logical processes of
|
|
thought are employed - that is, whenever thought for a time runs along
|
|
an accepted groove - there is an opportunity for the machine. Formal
|
|
logic used to be a keen instrument in the hands of the teacher in his
|
|
trying of students' souls. It is readily possible to construct a
|
|
machine which will manipulate premises in accordance with formal
|
|
logic, simply by the clever use of relay circuits. Put a set of
|
|
premises into such a device and turn the crank, and it will readily
|
|
pass out conclusion after conclusion, all in accordance with logical
|
|
law, and with no more slips than would be expected of a keyboard
|
|
adding machine.
|
|
|
|
Logic can become enormously difficult, and it would undoubtedly be
|
|
well to produce more assurance in its use. The machines for higher
|
|
analysis have usually been equation solvers. Ideas are beginning to
|
|
appear for equation transformers, which will rearrange the
|
|
relationship expressed by an equation in accordance with strict and
|
|
rather advanced logic. Progress is inhibited by the exceedingly crude
|
|
way in which mathematicians express their relationships. They employ
|
|
a symbolism which grew like Topsy and has little consistency; a
|
|
strange fact in that most logical field.
|
|
|
|
A new symbolism, probably positional, must apparently precede the
|
|
reduction of mathematical transformations to machine processes. Then,
|
|
on beyond the strict logic of the mathematician, lies the application
|
|
of logic in everyday affairs. We may some day click off arguments on
|
|
a machine with the same assurance that we now enter sales on a cash
|
|
register. But the machine of logic will not look like a cash
|
|
register, even a streamlined model.
|
|
|
|
So much for the manipulation of ideas and their insertion into the
|
|
record. Thus far we seem to be worse off than before - for we can
|
|
enormously extend the record; yet even in its present bulk we can
|
|
hardly consult it. This is a much larger matter than merely the
|
|
extraction of data for the purposes of scientific research; it
|
|
involves the entire process by which man profits by his inheritance of
|
|
acquired knowledge. The prime action of use is selection, and here we
|
|
are halting indeed. There may be millions of fine thoughts, and the
|
|
account of the experience on which they are based, all encased within
|
|
stone walls of acceptable architectural form; but if the scholar can
|
|
get at only one a week by diligent search, his syntheses are not
|
|
likely to keep up with the current scene.
|
|
|
|
Selection, in this broad sense, is a stone adze in the hands of a
|
|
cabinetmaker. Yet, in a narrow sense and in other areas, something
|
|
has already been done mechanically on selection. The personnel
|
|
officer of a factory drops a stack of a few thousand employee cards
|
|
into a selecting machine, sets a code in accordance with an
|
|
established convention, and produces in a short time a list of all
|
|
employees who live in Trenton and know Spanish. Even such devices are
|
|
much too slow when it comes, for example, to matching a set of
|
|
fingerprints with one of five millions on file. Selection devices of
|
|
this sort will soon be speeded up from their present rate of reviewing
|
|
data at a few hundred a minute. By the use of photocells and
|
|
microfilm they will survey items at the rate of thousands a second,
|
|
and will print out duplicates of those selected.
|
|
|
|
This process, however, is simple selection: it proceeds by examining
|
|
in turn every one of a large set of items, and by picking out those
|
|
which have certain specified characteristics. There is another form
|
|
of selection best illustrated by the automatic telephone exchange.
|
|
You dial a number and the machine selects and connects just one of a
|
|
million possible stations. It does not run over them all. It pays
|
|
attention only to a class given by a first digit, and so on; and thus
|
|
proceeds rapidly and almost unerringly to the selected station. It
|
|
requires a few seconds to make the selection, although the process
|
|
could be speeded up if increased speed were economically warranted.
|
|
If necessary, it could be made extremely fast by substituting
|
|
thermionic-tube switching for mechanical switching, so that the full
|
|
selection could be made in one-hundredth of a second. No one would
|
|
wish to spend the money necessary to make this change in the telephone
|
|
system, but the general idea is applicable elsewhere.
|
|
|
|
Take the prosaic problem of the great department store. Every time a
|
|
charge sale is made, there are a number of things to be done.. The
|
|
inventory needs to be revised, the salesman needs to be given credit
|
|
for the sale, the general accounts need an entry, and, most important,
|
|
the customer needs to be charged. A central records device has been
|
|
developed in which much of this work is done conveniently. The
|
|
salesman places on a stand the customer's identification card, his own
|
|
card, and the card taken from the article sold - all punched cards.
|
|
When he pulls a lever, contacts are made through the holes, machinery
|
|
at a central point makes the necessary computations and entries, and
|
|
the proper receipt is printed for the salesman to pass to the
|
|
customer.
|
|
|
|
But there may be ten thousand charge customers doing business with the
|
|
store, and before the full operation can be completed someone has to
|
|
select the right card and insert it at the central office. Now rapid
|
|
selection can slide just the proper card into position in an instant
|
|
or two, and return it afterward. Another difficulty occurs, however.
|
|
Someone must read a total on the card, so that the machine can add its
|
|
computed item to it. Conceivably the cards might be of the dry
|
|
photography type I have described. Existing totals could then be read
|
|
by photocell, and the new total entered by an electron beam.
|
|
|
|
The cards may be in miniature, so that they occupy little space. They
|
|
must move quickly. They need not be transferred far, but merely into
|
|
position so that the photocell and recorder can operate on them.
|
|
Positional dots can enter the data. At the end of the month a machine
|
|
can readily be made to read these and to print an ordinary bill. With
|
|
tube selection, in which no mechanical parts are involved in the
|
|
switches, little time need be occupied in bringing the correct card
|
|
into use - a second should suffice for the entire operation. The
|
|
whole record on the card may be made by magnetic dots on a steel sheet
|
|
if desired, instead of dots to be observed optically, following the
|
|
scheme by which Poulsen long ago put speech on a magnetic wire. This
|
|
method has the advantage of simplicity and ease of erasure. By using
|
|
photography, however, one can arrange to project the record in
|
|
enlarged form, and at a distance by using the process common in
|
|
television equipment.
|
|
|
|
One can consider rapid selection of this form, and distant projection
|
|
for other purposes. To be able to key one sheet of a million before
|
|
an operator in a second or two, with the possibility of then adding
|
|
notes thereto, is suggestive in many ways. It might even be of use in
|
|
libraries, but that is another story. At any rate, there are now some
|
|
interesting combinations possible. One might, for example, speak to a
|
|
microphone, in the manner described in connection with the
|
|
speech-controlled typewriter, and thus make his selections. It would
|
|
certainly beat the usual file clerk.
|
|
|
|
6
|
|
|
|
The real heart of the matter of selection, however, goes deeper than a
|
|
lag in the adoption of mechanisms by libraries, or a lack of
|
|
development of devices for their use. Our ineptitude in getting at
|
|
the record is largely caused by the artificiality of systems of
|
|
indexing. When data of any sort are placed in storage, they are filed
|
|
alphabetically or numerically, and information is found (when it is)
|
|
by tracing it down from subclass to subclass. It can be in only one
|
|
place, unless duplicates are used; one has to have rules as to which
|
|
path will locate it, and the rules are cumbersome. Having found one
|
|
item, moreover, one has to emerge from the system and re-enter on a
|
|
new path.
|
|
|
|
The human mind does not work that way. It operates by association.
|
|
With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is
|
|
suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some
|
|
intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain. It has
|
|
other characteristics, of course; trails that are not frequently
|
|
followed are prone to fade, items are not fully permanent, memory is
|
|
transitory. Yet the speed of action, the intricacy of trails, the
|
|
detail of mental pictures, is awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature.
|
|
|
|
Man cannot hope fully to duplicate this mental process artificially,
|
|
but he certainly ought to be able to learn from it. In minor ways he
|
|
may even improve, for his records have relative permanency. The first
|
|
idea, however, to be drawn from the analogy concerns selection.
|
|
Selection by association, rather than by indexing, may yet be
|
|
mechanized. One cannot hope thus to equal the speed and flexibility
|
|
with which the mind follows an associative trail, but it should be
|
|
possible to beat the mind decisively in regard to the permanence and
|
|
clarity of the items resurrected from storage.
|
|
|
|
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 be consulted with exceeding 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.
|
|
|
|
In one end is the stored material. The matter of bulk is well taken
|
|
care of by improved microfilm. Only a small part of the interior of
|
|
the memex is devoted to storage, the rest to mechanism. Yet if the
|
|
user inserted 5000 pages of material a day it would take him hundreds
|
|
of years to fill the repository, so he can be profligate and enter
|
|
material freely.
|
|
|
|
Most of the memex contents are purchased on microfilm ready for
|
|
insertion. Books of all sorts, pictures, current periodicals,
|
|
newspapers, are thus obtained and dropped into place. Business
|
|
correspondence takes the same path. And there is provision for direct
|
|
entry. On the top of the memex is a transparent platen. On this are
|
|
placed longhand notes, photographs, memoranda, all sort of things.
|
|
When one is in place, the depression of a lever causes it to be
|
|
photographed onto the next blank space in a section of the memex film,
|
|
dry photography being employed.
|
|
|
|
There is, of course, provision for consultation of the record by the
|
|
usual scheme of indexing. If the user wishes to consult a certain
|
|
book, he taps its code on the keyboard, and the title page of the book
|
|
promptly appears before him, projected onto one of his viewing
|
|
positions. Frequently-used codes are mnemonic, so that he seldom
|
|
consults his code book; but when he does, a single tap of a key
|
|
projects it for his use. Moreover, he has supplemental levers. On
|
|
deflecting one of these levers to the right he runs through the book
|
|
before him, each page in turn being projected at a speed which just
|
|
allows a recognizing glance at each. If he deflects it further to the
|
|
right, he steps through the book 10 pages at a time; still further at
|
|
100 pages at a time. Deflection to the left gives him the same
|
|
control backwards.
|
|
|
|
A special button transfers him immediately to the first page of the
|
|
index. Any given book of his library can thus be called up and
|
|
consulted with far greater facility than if it were taken from a
|
|
shelf. As he has several projection positions, he can leave one item
|
|
in position while he calls up another. He can add marginal notes and
|
|
comments, taking advantage of one possible type of dry photography,
|
|
and it could even be arranged so that he can do this by a stylus
|
|
scheme, such as is now employed in the telautograph seen in railroad
|
|
waiting rooms, just as though he had the physical page before him.
|
|
|
|
7
|
|
|
|
All this is conventional, except for the projection forward of
|
|
present-day mechanisms and gadgetry. It affords an immediate step,
|
|
however, to associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a
|
|
provision whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately
|
|
and automatically another. This is the essential feature of the
|
|
memex. The process of tying two items together is the important
|
|
thing.
|
|
|
|
When the user is building a trail, he names it, inserts the name in
|
|
his code book, and taps it out on his keyboard. Before him are the
|
|
two items to be joined, projected onto adjacent viewing positions. At
|
|
the bottom of each there are a number of blank code spaces, and a
|
|
pointer is set to indicate one of these on each item. The user taps a
|
|
single key, and the items are permanently joined. In each code space
|
|
appears the code word. Out of view, but also in the code space, is
|
|
inserted a set of dots for photocell viewing; and on each item these
|
|
dots by their positions designate the index number of the other item.
|
|
|
|
Thereafter, at any time, when one of these items is in view, the other
|
|
can be instantly recalled merely by tapping a button below the
|
|
corresponding code space. Moreover, when numerous items have been
|
|
thus joined together to form a trail, they can be reviewed in turn,
|
|
rapidly or slowly, by deflecting a lever like that used for turning
|
|
the pages of a book. It is exactly as though the physical items had
|
|
been gathered together to form a new book. It is more than this, for
|
|
any item can be joined into numerous trails.
|
|
|
|
The owner of the memex, let us say, is interested in the origin and
|
|
properties of the bow and arrow. Specifically he is studying why the
|
|
short Turkish bow was apparently superior to the English long bow in
|
|
the skirmishes of the Crusades. He has dozens of possibly pertinent
|
|
books and articles in his memex. First he runs through an
|
|
encyclopedia, finds an interesting but sketchy article, leaves it
|
|
projected. Next, in a history, he finds another pertinent item, and
|
|
ties the two together. Thus he goes, building a trail of many items.
|
|
Occasionally he inserts a comment of his own, either linking it into
|
|
the main trail or joining it by a side trail to a particular item.
|
|
When it becomes evident that the elastic properties of available
|
|
materials had a great deal to do with the bow, he branches off on a
|
|
side trail which takes him through textbooks on elasticity and tables
|
|
of physical constants. He inserts a page of longhand analysis of his
|
|
own. Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of
|
|
materials available to him.
|
|
|
|
And his trails do not fade. Several years later, his talk with a
|
|
friend turns to the queer ways in which a people resist innovations,
|
|
even of vital interest. He has an example, in the fact that the
|
|
outranged Europeans still failed to adopt the Turkish bow. In fact he
|
|
has a trail on it. A touch brings up the code book. Tapping a few
|
|
keys projects the head of the trail. A lever runs through it at will,
|
|
stopping at interesting items, going off on side excursions. It is an
|
|
interesting trail, pertinent to the discussion. So he sets a
|
|
reproducer in action, photographs the whole trail out, and passes it
|
|
to his friend for insertion in his own memex, there to be linked into
|
|
the more general trail.
|
|
|
|
8
|
|
|
|
Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready-made with a mesh
|
|
of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into
|
|
the memex and there amplified. The lawyer has at his touch the
|
|
associated opinions and decisions of his whole experience, and of the
|
|
experience of friends and authorities. The patent attorney has on
|
|
call the millions of issued patents, with familiar trails to every
|
|
point of his client's interest. The physician, puzzled by its
|
|
patient's reactions, strikes the trail established in studying an
|
|
earlier similar case, and runs rapidly through analogous case
|
|
histories, with side references to the classics for the pertinent
|
|
anatomy and histology. The chemist, struggling with the synthesis of
|
|
an organic compound, has all the chemical literature before him in his
|
|
laboratory, with trails following the analogies of compounds, and side
|
|
trails to their physical and chemical behavior.
|
|
|
|
The historian, with a vast chronological account of a people,
|
|
parallels it with a skip trail which stops only at the salient items,
|
|
and can follow at any time contemporary trails which lead him all over
|
|
civilization at a particular epoch. There is a new profession of
|
|
trail blazers, those who find delight in the task of establishing
|
|
useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record. The
|
|
inheritance from the master becomes, not only his additions to the
|
|
world's record, but for his disciples the entire scaffolding by which
|
|
they were erected.
|
|
|
|
Thus science may implement the ways in which man produces, stores, and
|
|
consults the record of the race. It might be striking to outline the
|
|
instrumentalities of the future more spectacularly, rather than to
|
|
stick closely to the methods and elements now known and undergoing
|
|
rapid development, as has been done here. Technical difficulties of
|
|
all sorts have been ignored, certainly, but also ignored are means as
|
|
yet unknown which may come any day to accelerate technical progress as
|
|
violently as did the advent of the thermionic tube. In order that the
|
|
picture may not be too commonplace, by reason of sticking to
|
|
present-day patterns, it may be well to mention one such possibility,
|
|
not to prophesy but merely to suggest, for prophecy based on extension
|
|
of the known has substance, while prophecy founded on the unknown is
|
|
only a doubly involved guess.
|
|
|
|
All our steps in creating or absorbing material of the record proceed
|
|
through one of the senses - the tactile when we touch keys, the oral
|
|
when we speak or listen, the visual when we read. Is it not possible
|
|
that some day the path may be established more directly?
|
|
|
|
We know that when the eye sees, all the consequent information is
|
|
transmitted to the brain by means of electrical vibrations in the
|
|
channel of the optic nerve. This is an exact analogy with the
|
|
electrical vibrations which occur in the cable of a television set:
|
|
they convey the picture from the photocells which see it to the radio
|
|
transmitter from which it is broadcast. We know further that if we
|
|
can approach that cable with the proper instruments, we do not need to
|
|
touch it; we can pick up those vibrations by electrical induction and
|
|
thus discover and reproduce the scene which is being transmitted, just
|
|
as a telephone wire may be tapped for its message.
|
|
|
|
The impulses which flow in the arm nerves of a typist convey to her
|
|
fingers the translated information which reaches her eye or ear, in
|
|
order that the fingers may be caused to strike the proper keys. Might
|
|
not these currents be intercepted, either in the original form in
|
|
which information is conveyed to the brain, or in the marvelously
|
|
metamorphosed form in which they then proceed to the hand?
|
|
|
|
By bone conduction we already introduce sounds into the nerve channels
|
|
of the deaf in order that they may hear. Is it not possible that we
|
|
may learn to introduce them without the present cumbersomeness of
|
|
first transforming electrical vibrations to mechanical ones, which the
|
|
human mechanism promptly transforms back to the electrical form? With
|
|
a couple of electrodes on the skull the encephalograph now produces
|
|
pen-and-ink traces which bear some relation to the electrical
|
|
phenomena going on in the brain itself. True, the record is
|
|
unintelligible, except as it points out certain gross misfunctioning
|
|
of the cerebral mechanism; but who would now place bounds on where
|
|
such a thing may lead?
|
|
|
|
In the outside world, all forms of intelligence, whether of sound or
|
|
sight, have been reduced to the form of varying currents in an
|
|
electric circuit in order that they may be transmitted. Inside the
|
|
human frame exactly the same sort of process occurs. Must we always
|
|
transform to mechanical movements in order to proceed from one
|
|
electrical phenomenon to another? It is a suggestive thought, but it
|
|
hardly warrants prediction without losing touch with reality and
|
|
immediateness.
|
|
|
|
Presumably man's spirit should be elevated if he can better review his
|
|
shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present
|
|
problems. He has built a civilization so complex that he needs to
|
|
mechanize his record more fully if he is to push his experiment to its
|
|
logical conclusion and not merely become bogged down part way there by
|
|
overtaxing his limited memory. His excursion may be more enjoyable if
|
|
he can reacquire the privilege of forgetting the manifold things he
|
|
does not need to have immediately at hand, with some assurance that he
|
|
can find them again if they prove important.
|
|
|
|
The applications of science have built man a well-supplied house, and
|
|
are teaching him to live healthily therein. They have enabled him to
|
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throw masses of people against another with cruel weapons. They may
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yet allow him truly to encompass the great record and to grow in the
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wisdom of race experience. He may perish in conflict before he learns
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to wield that record for his true good. Yet, in the application of
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science to the needs and desires of man, it would seem to be a
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singularly unfortunate stage at which to terminate the process, or to
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lose hope as to the outcome.
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</div>
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</body>
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</html> |