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Saved by 87 people (-11 private), first by anonymouse user on 2006-06-18


Public Comment

on 2006-08-29 by biverson

Today we talk about "information overload" but here we can see Vannevar Bush referring to "the record" by which he means the accumulated knowledge of science and scholars. He sees that as specializations increase, so does knowledge, but it soon becomes impossible to "keep up" with the growing body of information

on 2006-08-29 by biverson

This is the heart of the article: information is expanding but our way of handling it is the same as what folks used in the days of "square-rigged ships." He was envisioning the need for new methods of information handling.

on 2008-08-30 by sersinghaus

It's increaingly clear that we're in the same boat or even in a larger boat.

on 2008-08-30 by sersinghaus

This is funny but serves to create context for relationships and systems.

Public Sticky notes

Let us project this trend ahead to a logical, if not inevitable, outcome.

Highlighted by biverson

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. Yet specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress, and the effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial.

Highlighted by biverson

The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships.

Highlighted by biverson

But there are signs of a change as new and powerful instrumentalities come into use.

Highlighted by biverson

As the scientist of the future moves about the laboratory or the field, every time he looks at something worthy of the record, he trips the shutter and in it goes, without even an audible click. Is this all fantastic?

Highlighted by biverson

Will there be dry photography?

Highlighted by biverson

A record if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted.

Highlighted by biverson

As Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Dr. Vannevar Bush has coordinated the activities of some six thousand leading American scientists in the application of science to warfare. In this significant article he holds up an incentive for scientists when the fighting has ceased. He urges that men of science should then turn to the massive task of making more accessible our bewildering store of knowledge. For years inventions have extended man's physical powers rather than the powers of his mind. Trip hammers that multiply the fists, microscopes that sharpen the eye, and engines of destruction and detection are new results, but not the end results, of modern science. Now, says Dr. Bush, instruments are at hand which, if properly developed, will give man access to and command over the inherited knowledge of the ages. The perfection of these pacific instruments should be the first objective of our scientists as they emerge from their war work. Like Emerson's famous address of 1837 on "The American Scholar," this paper by Dr. Bush calls for a new relationship between thinking man and the sum of our knowledge. —THE EDITOR

Highlighted by wroush

Vannevar Bush

Highlighted by eyalnow

making more accessible our bewildering store of knowledge

Highlighted by rondalcw

this paper by Dr. Bush calls for a new relationship between thinking man and the sum of our knowledge.

Highlighted by valatrax

new relationship between thinking man and the sum of our knowledge

Highlighted by mchilds7

access to and command over the inherited knowledge of the ages.

Highlighted by rondalcw

a new relationship between thinking man and the sum of our knowledge

Highlighted by rondalcw

Highlighted by rondalcw

who have left academic pursuits for the making of strange destructive gadgets, who have had to devise new methods for their unanticipated assignments.

Highlighted by valatrax

hey have done their part on the devices that made it possible to turn back the enemy

Highlighted by valatrax

extracts from that record so that knowledge evolves and endures throughout the life of a race rather than that of an individual.

Highlighted by valatrax

swiftest communication between individuals

Highlighted by rondalcw

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.

Highlighted by sersinghaus

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. Yet specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress, and the effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial.

Highlighted by valatrax

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.

Highlighted by vlinderman

growing mountain of research

Highlighted by rondalcw

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. Yet specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress, and the effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial.

Highlighted by hanserd

bogged down

Highlighted by rondalcw

Professionally our methods of transmitting and reviewing the results of research are generations old and by now are totally inadequate for their purpose.

Highlighted by sersinghaus

conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember, as they appear

Highlighted by rondalcw

Professionally our methods of transmitting and reviewing the results of research are generations old and by now are totally inadequate for their purpose. If the aggregate time spent in writing scholarly works and in reading them could be evaluated, the ratio between these amounts of time might well be startling. Those who conscientiously attempt to keep abreast of current thought, even in restricted fields, by close and continuous reading might well shy away from an examination calculated to show how much of the previous month's efforts could be produced on call. Mendel's concept of the laws of genetics was lost to the world for a generation because his publication did not reach the few who were capable of grasping and extending it; and this sort of catastrophe is undoubtedly being repeated all about us, as truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential.

Highlighted by hennis

he effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial

Highlighted by rondalcw

our methods of transmitting and reviewing the results of research are generations old and by now are totally inadequate for their purpose

Highlighted by davidzemmels

methods of transmitting and reviewing the results of research are generations old and by now are totally inadequate for their purpose

Highlighted by rondalcw

methods of transmitting and reviewing the results of research are generations old and by now are totally inadequate

Highlighted by vlinderman

Professionally our methods of transmitting and reviewing the results of research are generations old and by now are totally inadequate for their purpose. If the aggregate time spent in writing scholarly works and in reading them could be evaluated, the ratio between these amounts of time might well be startling

Highlighted by hanserd

as truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential

Highlighted by valatrax

Mendel's concept of the laws of genetics was lost to the world for a generation because his publication did not reach the few who were capable of grasping and extending it; and this sort of catastrophe is undoubtedly being repeated all about us, as truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential.

The difficulty seems to be, not so much that we publish unduly in view of the extent and variety of present day interests, but rather that publication has been extended far beyond our present ability to make real use of the record.

Highlighted by vlinderman

The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships.

Highlighted by sersinghaus

Mendel's concept of the laws of genetics was lost to the world for a generation because his publication did not reach the few who were capable of grasping and extending it; and this sort of catastrophe is undoubtedly being repeated all about us, as truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential

Highlighted by hanserd

truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential

Highlighted by rondalcw

publication has been extended far beyond our present ability to make real use of the record

Highlighted by rondalcw

The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships.

Highlighted by hanserd

there are plenty of mechanical aids with which to effect a transformation in scientific records.

Highlighted by rondalcw

complexity and unreliability were synonymous.

Highlighted by sersinghaus

Had a Pharaoh been given detailed and explicit designs of an automobile, and had he understood them completely, it would have taxed the resources of his kingdom to have fashioned the thousands of parts for a single car, and that car would have broken down on the first trip to Giza.

Highlighted by sersinghaus

Had a Pharaoh been given detailed and explicit designs of an automobile, and had he understood them completely, it would have taxed the resources of his kingdom to have fashioned the thousands of parts for a single car, and that car would have broken down on the first trip to Giza.

Highlighted by hanserd

Machines with interchangeable parts can now be constructed with great economy of effort. In spite of much complexity, they perform reliably. Witness the humble typewriter, or the movie camera, or the automobile. Electrical contacts have ceased to stick when thoroughly understood. Note the automatic telephone exchange, which has hundreds of thousands of such contacts, and yet is reliable. A spider web of metal, sealed in a thin glass container, a wire heated to brilliant glow, in short, the thermionic tube of radio sets, is made by the hundred million, tossed about in packages, plugged into sockets—and it works! Its gossamer parts, the precise location and alignment involved in its construction, would have occupied a master craftsman of the guild for months; now it is built for thirty cents. The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.

Highlighted by weaklingman

A record if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted. Today we make the record conventionally by writing and photography, followed by

Highlighted by advee77

The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.

Highlighted by rondalcw

A record if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted.

Highlighted by weaklingman

The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.

Highlighted by hanserd

A record if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted.

Highlighted by vlinderman

A record if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted.

Highlighted by rondalcw

Let us project this trend ahead to a logical, if not inevitable, outcome.

Highlighted by sersinghaus

A record if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted.

Highlighted by hanserd

The process is now slow, but someone may speed it up, and it has no grain difficulties such as now keep photographic researchers busy. Often it would be advantageous to be able to snap the camera and to look at the picture immediately.

Highlighted by sersinghaus

on 2008-09-05 by sersinghaus

So, there you have it!