Vannevar Bush was the Director of the Office of Naval Research in 1945 when he wrote about his vision for the MEMEX which inspired me in my work in computer-assisted document retrieval systems in the 1970's and was the seminal text that inspired Doug Engelbart in his promethean work that led to the development of the Internet, graphical user interfaces, hyperdocuments and the mouse. Here is a clip:
"There is a growing mountain of research. But there is increased evidence that we are being bogged down today as specialization extends. The investigator is staggered by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers—conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember, as they appear."
Sound familiar? As We May Think:
1 comment:
Vannevar Bush is one of the great unsung figures of the manhattan project; totally overshadowed by Oppenheimer but Bush was a critical hub in keeping the bomb fastracked by the senior decision makers.
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