Citizendia

Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush, ca. 1940-44
Vannevar Bush, ca. 1940-44
Born March 11, 1890 (1890-03-11)
Flag of the United States Everett, Massachusetts
Died June 30, 1974 (aged 84)
Belmont, Massachusetts
Institutions MIT
Alma mater B. Events 1425 BC - Thutmose III, Pharaoh of Egypt, dies (according to the Low Chronology of the 18th Dynasty Year 1890 ( MDCCCXC) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Everett is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, near Boston. Events 350 - Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, is defeated and killed by troops of the Usurper Year 1974 ( MCMLXXIV) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. Belmont is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, a Suburb of Boston. Alma mater is Latin for "nourishing mother" It was used in Ancient Rome as a title for the mother Goddess, and in Medieval A. Tufts College 1913
Ph. D. MIT 1917
Doctoral students Claude E. Shannon

Vannevar Bush (March 11, 1890 – June 30, 1974) was an American engineer and science administrator known for his work on analog computing, his political role in the development of the atomic bomb, and the idea of the memex, which was seen decades later as a pioneering concept for the World Wide Web. Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30 1916 – February 24 2001 an American Electronic engineer and Mathematician, is "the father of Information Events 1425 BC - Thutmose III, Pharaoh of Egypt, dies (according to the Low Chronology of the 18th Dynasty Year 1890 ( MDCCCXC) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Events 350 - Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, is defeated and killed by troops of the Usurper Year 1974 ( MCMLXXIV) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the An engineer is a person professionally engaged in a field of Engineering. An analog computer (spelt analogue in British English is a form of Computer that uses continuous physical phenomena such as electrical mechanical A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from Nuclear reactions either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. The memex (a Portmanteau of "memory extender" is the name given by Vannevar Bush to the theoretical proto- Hypertext computer system he proposed The World Wide Web (commonly shortened to the Web) is a system of interlinked Hypertext documents accessed via the Internet.

A leading figure in the development of the military-industrial complex and the military funding of science in the United States, Bush was a prominent policymaker and public intellectual ("the patron saint of American science") during World War II and the ensuing Cold War [1], and was in effect the first presidential science advisor. A military-industrial complex (MIC is a concept commonly used to refer to Policy relationships between Governments national Armed forces, and industrial The military funding of science has had a powerful transformative effect on the practice and products of scientific research since the early 20th century World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the Congress established the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy ( OSTP) in 1976 with a broad mandate to advise the President and others within the Executive Through his public career, Bush was a proponent of democratic technocracy and of the centrality of technological innovation and entrepreneurship for both economic and geopolitical security. Technocracy: A form of government in which scientists and technical experts are in control "technocracy is described as that society in which those who govern justify themselves His name is pronounced van-NEE-ver (with the same stresses as in "receiver") (IPA: [ˌvæˈniː. vɚ]).

Contents

Life and work

Vannevar Bush was born in Everett, Massachusetts to Richard Perry Bush and Emma Linwood Paine. Everett is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, near Boston. He was educated at Tufts College (now Tufts University), graduating in 1913. From mid-1913 to October 1914, Bush worked at General Electric (where he was a supervising "test man"); during the 1914-1915 academic year, Bush taught math at Jackson College (the sister school of Tufts). After a summer working as an electrical inspector and a brief stint at Clark University as a doctoral student of Arthur Gordon Webster, Bush entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) electrical engineering program. Clark University is a private University and Liberal arts college in Worcester Massachusetts. Arthur Gordon Webster was the founder of the American Physical Society. Spurred by the need for enough financial security to marry, Bush finished his thesis in less than a year. In August 1916 he married Phoebe Davis, whom he had known since Tufts, in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Chelsea is a city in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States directly across the Mystic River from the city of Boston. He received a doctorate in engineering from MIT (and Harvard University, jointly) in 1917—following a dispute with his adviser Arthur Edwin Kennelly, who tried to demand more work from Bush. Arthur Edwin Kennelly ( December 17, 1861 - June 18, 1939) was an Indian American Electrical engineer. [2] He is not related to the political Bush family. Originating in Orange New Jersey, the Bush family in the 20th century became an accomplished Political family in the United States, including across

During World War I he worked with the National Research Council in developing improved techniques for detecting submarines. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All The National Research Council (NRC of the USA is the working arm of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the United States National Academy of He joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at MIT in 1919, and was a professor there from 1923–32.

In 1922, Bush and his college roommate, Laurence K. Marshall, set up the American Appliance Company to market a device called the S-tube. This was a gaseous rectifier invented by C. G. Smith that greatly improved the efficiency of radios. Bush made a lot of money from the venture. The company, renamed Raytheon, became an electronics giant and a defense contractor. Raytheon Company ( is a major American Defense contractor and industrial corporation with core Manufacturing concentrations in Defense systems A defense contractor (or defence contractor, also sometimes called a military contractor) is a Business organization or individual that provides products

Starting from 1927, Bush constructed a Differential Analyser, an analog computer that could solve differential equations with as many as 18 independent variables. The differential analyser was a mechanical Analog computer designed to solve Differential equations by integration, using wheel-and-disc mechanisms to perform An analog computer (spelt analogue in British English is a form of Computer that uses continuous physical phenomena such as electrical mechanical A differential equation is a mathematical Equation for an unknown function of one or several variables that relates the values of the An offshoot of the work at MIT was the birth of digital circuit design theory by one of Bush's graduate students, Claude Shannon. Digital electronics are Electronics systems that use Digital signals Digital electronics are representations of Boolean algebra also see Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30 1916 – February 24 2001 an American Electronic engineer and Mathematician, is "the father of Information

Bush became vice-president and dean of engineering at MIT from 1932–38. This post included many of the powers and functions subsumed by the Provost when MIT introduced this post in 1949 including some appointments of lecturers to specific posts.

World War II period

Vannevar Bush in his element: a 1940 meeting at Berkeley with (from left to right) Ernest O. Lawrence, Arthur H. Compton, Bush, James B. Conant, Karl T. Compton, and Alfred L. Loomis
Vannevar Bush in his element: a 1940 meeting at Berkeley with (from left to right) Ernest O. Lawrence, Arthur H. Compton, Bush, James B. Conant, Karl T. Compton, and Alfred L. Loomis

In 1939 Bush accepted the prestigious appointment as president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, which awarded large sums annually for research. Ernest Orlando Lawrence ( August 8, 1901 – August 27, 1958) was an American physicist and Nobel Laureate best known for his Arthur Holly Compton (September 10 1892 &ndash March 15 1962 was an American physicist and Nobel laureate in physics for his discovery of the Compton effect James Bryant Conant ( March 26, 1893 &ndash February 11, 1978) was a Chemist, educational administrator and government official Karl Taylor Compton ( September 14, 1887 &ndash June 22, 1954) was a prominent American Physicist and president of Alfred Lee Loomis ( November 4, 1887 &ndash August 11, 1975) was an American Attorney, Investment banker, Physicist The Carnegie Institution for Science (also called the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) is a organization in the United States established to support Scientific As president, Bush was able to influence the direction of research in the U. S. towards military objectives and could informally advise the government on scientific matters. In 1939 he fully moved into the political arena with his appointment as chairman of National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which he headed through 1941. Bush remained a member of NACA through 1948.

During World War I, Bush had seen the lack of cooperation between civilian scientists and the military. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Concerned about the lack of coordination in scientific research in the U. S. and the need for all-out mobilization for defense, Bush in 1939 proposed a general directive agency in the Federal Government, which he often discussed with his colleagues at NACA, James B. Conant (President of Harvard University), Karl T. Compton (President of M.I.T.) (both pictured with Bush in photo right), and Frank B. James Bryant Conant ( March 26, 1893 &ndash February 11, 1978) was a Chemist, educational administrator and government official Karl Taylor Compton ( September 14, 1887 &ndash June 22, 1954) was a prominent American Physicist and president of Jewitt, President of the National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS is a corporation in the United States whose members serve Pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science

Bush continued to press for the agency's creation. Early in 1940, at Bush's suggestion, the secretary of NACA began preparing a draft of the proposed National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) to be presented to Congress. The National Defense Research Committee (NDRC was an organization created "to coordinate supervise and conduct scientific research on the problems underlying the development But when Germany invaded France, Bush decided speed was of the essence and approached President Roosevelt directly. He managed to get a meeting with the President on 12 June 1940 and took a single sheet of paper describing the proposed agency. Events 1381 - Peasants' Revolt: in England, rebels arrive at Blackheath. Year 1940 ( MCMXL) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Roosevelt approved it in ten minutes.

NDRC was functioning, with Bush as chairman and others as members, even before the agency was made official by order of the Council of National Defense on June 27, 1940. The Council of National Defense was a United States organization formed to coordinate resources and industry for national security Bush quickly appointed four leading scientists to NRDC: NACA colleagues Conant, Compton, and Jewitt, and also Richard C. Tolman, dean of the graduate school at Caltech. Richard Chace Tolman ( March 4 1881 &ndash September 5 1948) was an American mathematical physicist and Physical chemist The California Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Caltech) is a private, Coeducational research university located in Pasadena Each was assigned an area of responsibility. Compton was in charge of radar, Conant of chemistry and explosives, Jewitt of armor and ordnance, and Tolman of patents and inventions. Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range altitude direction or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as Aircraft, ships Government officials then complained that Bush was making a grab for power, by-passing them. Bush later agreed: "That, in fact, is exactly what it was. " This co-ordination of scientific effort was instrumental in the Allies winning the Second World War. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Alfred Loomis (photo above) said that "Of the men whose death in the summer of 1940 would have been the greatest calamity for America, the President is first, and Dr. Alfred Lee Loomis ( November 4, 1887 &ndash August 11, 1975) was an American Attorney, Investment banker, Physicist Bush would be second or third. "

In 1941 the NDRC was subsumed into the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) with Bush as director, which controlled the Manhattan Project until 1943 (when administration was assumed by the Army) and which also coordinated scientific research during World War II. The Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD was an agency of the United States federal government created to coordinate scientific research for military purposes The World War II Manhattan Project developed the first Nuclear weapon (atomic bomb World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including In all, OSRD directed 30,000 men and oversaw development of some 200 weapons and instrumentalities of war, including sonar, radar, the proximity fuse, amphibious vehicles, and the Norden bomb sight, all considered critical in winning the war. Sonar (which started as an Acronym for sound navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses Sound propagation (usually underwater to navigate Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range altitude direction or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as Aircraft, ships A proximity fuze (also called a VT fuze for "variable time" is a fuze that is designed to detonate an explosive device automatically when the distance The Norden bombsight was a Bombsight used by the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, and the United States Air Force in the At one time, two-thirds of all the nation’s physicists were working under Bush’s direction. In addition, OSRD contributed to many advances in the physical sciences and medicine, including the mass production of penicillin and sulfa drugs. Penicillin (sometimes abbreviated PCN or pen) is a group of Beta-lactam antibiotics used in the treatment of Bacterial Infections There are several sulfonamide-based groups of drugs The original antibacterial sulfonamides (sometimes called simply sulfa drugs are synthetic antimicrobial agents that contain the sulfonamide

In a memo to Bush dated March 20, 1942, President Roosevelt wrote, "I have read your extremely interesting report and I agree that the time has come for a review of the work of the Office on New Weapons. Events 1600 - The Linköping Bloodbath takes place on Maundy Thursday in Linköping, Sweden. Year 1942 ( MCMXLII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (the link will display the full 1942 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. . . . I am returning the report for you to lock up, as I think it is probably better that I should not have it in my own files. "[3]

Bush's method of management at OSRD was to direct overall policy while delegating supervision of divisions to qualified colleagues and letting them do their jobs without interference. He attempted to interpret the mandate of OSRD as narrowly as possible to avoid overtaxing his office and to prevent duplicating the efforts of other agencies. Other problems were obtaining adequate funds from the President and Congress and determining apportionment of research among government, academic, and industrial facilities. However, his most difficult problems, and also greatest successes, were keeping the confidence of the military, which distrusted the ability of civilians to observe security regulations, and fighting the draft of young scientists into the armed forces. The New York Times in its obituary described him as “a master craftsman at steering around obstacles, whether they were technical or political or bull-headed generals and admirals. ” Dr. Conant commented, “To see him in action with the generals was an exhibit. ”

Post-war years

OSRD continued to function actively until some time after the end of hostilities, but by 1946 and 1947 it had been reduced to a skeleton staff charged with finishing work remaining from the war period.

It had been hoped by Bush and many others that with the dissolution of OSRD, an equivalent peacetime government research and development agency would replace it. Bush felt that basic research was the key to national survival, both from a military point of view and in the commercial arena, requiring continued government support for science and technology. Technical superiority could be a deterrent to future enemy aggression. In July 1945, in his report to the President Science, The Endless Frontier, Bush wrote that basic research was: "the pacemaker of technological progress” and "New products and new processes do not appear full-grown. They are founded on new principles and new conceptions, which in turn are painstakingly developed by research in the purest realms of science!" He recommended the creation of what would eventually become in 1950 the National Science Foundation (NSF), in an effort to cement the ties between academic science, industry and the military which had been forged during the war. The National Science Foundation (NSF is a United States Government agency that supports fundamental Research and Education in all the non-medical

Simultaneously in July 1945, the Kilgore bill was introduced in Congress proposing a single science administrator appointed and removable by the President, with heavy emphasis on applied research, and a patent clause favoring a government monopoly. In contrast, the competing Magnuson bill leaned towards Bush's proposal to vest control in a panel of top scientists and civilian administrators with the executive director appointed by them, to place emphasis on basic research, and to protect private patent rights. A compromise Kilgore-Magnuson bill of February 1946 passed the Senate but died in the House because Bush threw his support to a competing bill that was a virtual duplicate of the original Magnuson bill.

In February 1947, a Senate bill was introduced to create the National Science Foundation to replace OSRD, favoring most of the features advocated by Bush, including the controversial administration by an autonomous scientific board. It passed the Senate on May 20 and the House on July 16, but was vetoed by Truman on August 6 on the grounds that the administrative officers were not properly responsible to either the President or Congress.

In the meantime Bush was still in charge of what was left of OSRD and fulfilling his duties as president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The Carnegie Institution for Science (also called the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) is a organization in the United States established to support Scientific In addition, Bush postwar had helped create the Joint Research and Development Board (JRDB) of the Army and Navy, of which he was chair. With passage of the National Security Act, signed into law in late July 1947, the JRDB became the Research and Development Board (RDB). The National Security Act of 1947, Pub L No 235 80 Cong 61 Stat It was to promote research through the military until a bill creating the National Science Foundation finally became law.

It was assumed President Truman would naturally appoint Bush chairman of the new agency, and behind the scenes Bush was lobbying hard for the position. But Truman’s displeasure with the form of the just-vetoed NSF bill backed by Bush now came into play. Truman viewed it as a power grab by Bush. His misgivings about Bush came out publicly on September 3, 1947: He wanted more time to think about it and reportedly told his defense chiefs that if he did appoint Bush, he planned to keep a close eye on him. However, Truman finally relented. On September 24 Bush met with Truman and Secretary of Defense James Forrestal where Truman offered the position to Bush. James Vincent Forrestal ( February 15, 1892 &ndash May 22, 1949) was a United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United

Initially the RDB had a budget of 465 million dollars to be spent on "research and development for military purposes. " Late in 1947, a directive issued by Forrestal further defined the duties of the board and assigned it the responsibility and authority to "resolve differences among the several departments and agencies of the military establishment. "

However, the scope and authority Bush had as chairman of the RDB, was a far cry from the power and influence he enjoyed as director of OSRD and the agency he hoped to create postwar almost independent of the Executive branch and Congress. Bush was never happy with the position and resigned as chairman of the RDB after a year, but remained on the oversight committee.

Despite his later shaky relationship with Truman, Bush’s advice on various scientific and political matters was often sought out by Truman. When Truman became President and first learned of the atomic bomb, Bush briefed him on the scientific aspects. Soon after, in June 1945, Bush was on the committee advising Truman to use the atomic bomb against Japan at the earliest opportunity. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear attacks near the end of World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States at In “Pieces of Action,” Bush wrote that he thought use of the bomb would shorten the war and prevent many American casualties. Bush's vision of how to apply the lessons of OSRD to peacetime, Science, The Endless Frontier, was written in July 1945 at Truman's request.

Immediately after the war, debates raged about future uses of atomic energy and whether it should be placed under international control. Nuclear power is any Nuclear technology designed to extract usable Energy from atomic nuclei via controlled Nuclear reactions In early 1946, Bush was appointed to a committee to work out a plan for United Nations control. The International Atomic Energy Agency ( IAEA) is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its According to Truman in his memoirs, Bush advised him that a proposal to Russia for exchange of scientific information would open the door to international collaboration and eventually to effective control, the alternative being an atomic bomb race. Bush wrote in a memo, “The move does not involve ‘giving away the secret of the atomic bomb. That secret resides principally in the details of construction of the bombs themselves, and in the manufacturing process. What is given and what is received is scientific knowledge. ” Bush felt that attempts to maintain scientific secrets from the Russians would be of little benefit to the U. S. since they would probably obtain such secrets anyway through espionage while most American scientists would be kept in the dark.

In September 1949, Bush was also appointed to a scientific committee reviewing the evidence that Russia had just tested its first atomic bomb. The conclusions were relayed to Truman who then made the public announcement.

Bush continued to serve on NACA through 1948 and expressed annoyance with aircraft companies for delaying development of a turbojet engine because of the huge expense of research and development plus retooling from older piston engines. TurboJET (噴射飛航 is the brand name for the operations of the Hong Kong -based Shun Tak-China Travel Ship Management Limited (信德中旅船務管理有限公司 [4]

From 1947 to 1962 Bush was also on the board of directors of American Telephone and Telegraph. Before proposing a merge request please see Talk and see if the merger you propose has recently been made and In 1955 Bush retired as President of the Carnegie Institution and returned to Massachusetts. From 1957 to 1962 he was chairman of the pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co.. Merck & Co Inc ( also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme or MSD outside the USA and Canada, is one of the largest Pharmaceutical companies

Miscellaneous

One of Bush's PhD students at MIT was Frederick Terman, who was later instrumental in the genesis of "Silicon Valley". Frederick Emmons Terman (June 7 1900 in English, Indiana – December 19 1982 was an American academic For the valley nicknamed "Silicone Valley" see San Fernando Valley.

Canadian government documents from 1950 and 1951 involving the Canadian Defence Research Board, Department of Transport, and Embassy in Washington D. Defence Research and Development Canada, also Defence R&D Canada or DRDC ( Recherche & développement pour la défense Canada, R & D pour la défense C. , implicate Bush as heading up a highly secret UFO study group within the U. S. Research and Development Board. [4] (See also Majestic 12)

Bush was opposed to the introduction of Nazi scientists into the U. Majestic 12 (also known as Majic 12, Majestic Trust, M12, MJ 12, MJ XII or Majority 12) is the purported Code S. under the secretive Project Paperclip, thinking that they were potentially a danger to democracy. Operation Paperclip (also Project Paperclip) was the code name for the O

Bush always believed in a strong national defense and the role that scientific research played in it. However in an interview on his 80th birthday he expressed reservations about the arms race he had helped to create. “I do think the military is too big now—I think we’ve overdone putting bases all over the world. ” He also expressed opposition to the antiballistic missile (ABM) because it would damage arms limitation talks with the Soviets and because “I don’t think the damn thing will work. An anti-ballistic missile (ABM is a Missile designed to counter Ballistic missiles (a missile for Missile defense) ”

Bush and his wife Phoebe had two sons: Richard Davis Bush and John Hathaway Bush. Vannevar Bush died at age 84 from pneumonia after suffering a stroke in 1974 in Belmont, Massachusetts. Belmont is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, a Suburb of Boston. A lengthy obituary was published on the front page of the New York Times on June 30.

The Memex

He introduced the concept of what he called the memex in the 1930s, a microfilm-based "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. The memex (a Portmanteau of "memory extender" is the name given by Vannevar Bush to the theoretical proto- Hypertext computer system he proposed Microforms are any form either films or paper containing microreproductions of documents for transmission storage reading and printing "

After thinking about the potential of augmented memory for several years, Bush set out his thoughts at length in the essay "As We May Think" in the Atlantic Monthly which is described as having been written in 1936 but set aside when war loomed. As We May Think is an essay by Vannevar Bush, first published in The Atlantic Monthly in July 1945 The Atlantic (formerly known as The Atlantic Monthly) is an American Magazine founded in Boston in 1857 He removed it from his drawer and it was published in July 1945. In the article, Bush predicted that "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. An encyclopedia (or '''encyclopædia''') is a comprehensive written Compendium that contains Information on either all branches of Knowledge " A few months later (10 September 1945) Life magazine published a condensed version of "As We May Think," accompanied by several illustrations showing the possible appearance of a memex machine and its companion devices. Events 506 - The Bishops of Visigothic Gaul meet in the Council of Agde. Year 1945 ( MCMXLV) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar This version of the essay was subsequently read by both Ted Nelson and Douglas Engelbart, and was a factor in their independent formulations of the various ideas that became hypertext. Theodor Holm Nelson (born 1937 is an American Sociologist, Philosopher, and pioneer of Information technology. Dr Douglas C Engelbart (born January 30 1925 is an American Inventor.

Michael Buckland, a library scientist, regards the memex as severely flawed and blames it on a limited understanding by Bush of both information science and microfilm. Michael Keeble Buckland (born 1941 is an Emeritus Professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information and Co-Director of the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative. Information science is an interdisciplinary science primarily concerned with the collection classification, manipulation storage retrieval and dissemination Bush did not refer in his popular essay to the microfilm-based workstation proposed by Leonard Townsend in 1938, or the microfilm- and electronics-based selector described in more detail and patented by Emmanuel Goldberg in 1931. The memex is still an important accomplishment, because it directly inspired the development of hypertext technology.

Conservative approach

Vannevar Bush overestimated some technological challenges. His name has been applied to such underestimates in jargon [5] He asserted that a nuclear weapon could not be made small enough to fit in the nose of a missile as in an ICBM. A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from Nuclear reactions either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. A missile (see also pronunciation differences) is a self-propelled explosive Projectile used as a weapon towards a target In his book "Modern Arms and Free Men", published in 1949, he originally predicted that it would be ten more years before the USSR developed nuclear weapons.

Bush, in the foreword to "Modern Arms and Free Men" says, "As I have been writing, the scene has continually changed, and it is still changing as the last few words are added. The President's announcement of evidence of an atomic explosion in the Soviet Union appears as the volume goes to press. " In addition the first chapter's epigraph is the following quote from James V. Forrestal, "There are many sciences with which war is concerned, but war is not such a science itself, and any forecast for the indefinite future presupposes a certitude that is not possible. "

He also predicted "electronic brains" the size of the Empire State Building with a Niagara Falls–scale cooling system. The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco Skyscraper in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street The Niagara Falls are massive Waterfalls on the Niagara River, straddling the international border separating the Canadian province of Ontario While this does not look quite so far-fetched if Google's entire collection of servers is considered as a single "brain", it still falls well short of Bush's prediction. Google Inc is an American public corporation, earning revenue from advertising related to its Internet search, e-mail, online Google requires large computational resources in order to provide their service

Bush privately, and then publicly, opposed NASA's manned space program and took the unpopular stance of attacking the moon exploration goals set forth by president John F. Kennedy at a time when the U. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA, ˈnæsə is an agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's public space program John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29 1917&ndashNovember 22 1963 often referred to by his initials JFK, was the thirty-fifth President of S. was nearly perfectly united in supporting it. His opposition was based on fiscal reasons and on his calculated judgment that human lives would be lost in what he considered to be an extremely risky adventure, from an engineering standpoint. This conservative stance is taken to reinforce his reputation as a bad prophet in technological matters, since the deaths in Project Apollo were on the ground, the Apollo 13 crew survived, and the two previous programs were completed without astronaut fatalities. His rational warnings were largely ignored then, and were mostly forgotten by the time the Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia disasters took 7 lives each in 1986 and 2003, respectively. The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster took place on January 28 1986 when ''Challenger'', a Space Shuttle operated by NASA, broke apart The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' disintegrated over Texas

Honors, memberships, and affiliations

Publications

See also

References

  1. ^ Zachary, Endless Frontier, p 3. The memex (a Portmanteau of "memory extender" is the name given by Vannevar Bush to the theoretical proto- Hypertext computer system he proposed As We May Think is an essay by Vannevar Bush, first published in The Atlantic Monthly in July 1945 Dr Douglas C Engelbart (born January 30 1925 is an American Inventor. Theodor Holm Nelson (born 1937 is an American Sociologist, Philosopher, and pioneer of Information technology. The National Science Board established the Vannevar Bush Award in 1980 to honor Dr Majestic 12 (also known as Majic 12, Majestic Trust, M12, MJ 12, MJ XII or Majority 12) is the purported Code Full quotation: "To the public, Bush was the patron saint of American science, 'one of the most important men in America. '"
  2. ^ Zachary, Endless Frontier, pp 11-34
  3. ^ Memorandum for Dr. Vannevar Bush. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library.
  4. ^ Arthur Bray, The UFO Connection, 1979, Jupiter Publishing, ISBN 0-9690135-1-5, 46-75; Grant Cameron & T. Scott Crain, UFOs, MJ-12, & the Government, 1991, MUFON, 4-7, 55-60; Timothy Good, Beyond Top Secret’’, 1996, Pan Books, 183-188, 464-66, ISBN 0-330-34928-7 [1] [2][3]

External links

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