Negative Space: Vannevar Bush
- Our Cybernetic Future 1945: As We May Blog
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As we go back in time for insight into the future, actual hardware recedes and the relationship between man and hardware comes to the fore. In 1945, Vannevar Bush laid out a vision of the Internet and desktop computers filled with the knowledge of mankind. And he recognized that this would not merely change how quickly we think, but how we think.
- Our Cybernetic Future 2023: Entropy in Action
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Studying the past, we can improve the future. Studying the futurists of the past, we can learn the tools to improve the future.
More Information
- As We May Think
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“As Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Dr. Vannevar Bush has coördinated 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.”
- Vannevar Bush: The Memex
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“In 1945, Bush authored the article ‘As We May Think’ in the Atlantic Monthly in which he first proposed his idea of the Memex machine. This machine was designed to help people sort through the enormous amount of published information available throughout the world… The machine would augment human memory by allowing the user to make links, or ‘associative trails,’ between documents. Bush… introduced the terms ‘links,’ ‘linkages,’ ‘trails,’ and ‘Web’ through his descriptions of a new type of textuality. Bush’s article greatly influenced the creators of what we know as ‘hypertext’ and how we use the Internet today.”
