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50 Years After 'As We May Think': the Brown/MIT Vannevar Bush

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50 Years After 'As We May Think': the Brown/MIT Vannevar Bush As We May Think Rosemary Simpson Information Programming Allen Renear, Elli Mylonas, and Andries van Dam Brown University 50 Years After “As We May Think”: The Brown/MIT Vannevar Bush Symposium This paper gives a thematic view of the Vannevar Bush Symposium held at MIT on October 12-13, 1995 to honor the 50th anniversary of Bush’s seminal paper, “As We May Think”. It is not intended to be an exhaustive review of the speeches and panels, but rather to convey the intense intellectual and emotional quality of what was a most extraordinary event, one that was self-referential in ways unanticipated by the planners. To capture this event further, we are planning a Web site that will contain extensive hypertextual written, audio, and video records. interactions...march 1996 47 Introduction author of From Memex to two days it became very clear Hypertext, presented an ani- how deep and ambitious — In honor of the 50th anniver- mated simulation of the socially and culturally — Bush’s sary of Vannevar Bush’s semi- memex created for the sym- most central ideas were. At nal paper, “As We May Think”, posium that provided a valu- every turn we were reminded Brown University and MIT able context for the speeches that Bush was writing about cosponsored The Vannevar that followed. how fundamentally new intel- Bush Symposium on October The symposium was lectual practices could change 12-13, 1995, at MIT. The fea- designed as a “posthumous the entire landscape of human tured speakers — Douglas Festschrift” — a research sym- social life. Bush’s vision was Engelbart, Ted Nelson, Robert posium in honor of Bush’s not just about hypertext, or Kahn, Tim Berners-Lee, vision. Andy van Dam, the data management, or informa- Michael Lesk, Nicholas Negro- symposium organizer and tion retrieval, let alone about ponte, Raj Reddy, Lee Sproull, moderator, charged the speak- microfilm or calculating and Alan Kay — are all pio- ers to ground their talks in the machines; rather, it was about neers who have shaped the intersection between their extending the power of human legacy of Bush we are work and Bush’s vision and beings by giving them radically immersed in today. They also then to look at the still new ways of working together. represent the major topics of unsolved problems — to, in The goal of fundamentally “As We May Think”: augmen- effect, set the research agenda changing how we work in tation of human sensory and for the next 50 years, as the order to address pressing mental capabilities; informa- prescient Bush had for the human problems continued to tion structuring, retrieval, and previous 50. But these two be central throughout the transmission; and the syner- days became — perhaps development of Bush’s legacy gistic interplay of technology inevitably, given the speakers, in the ‘60s and ‘70s, most and human enterprise. The the audience, and the occasion obviously in the work of invited audience included peo- — rather more than either a Engelbart, Nelson, and Kay. ple from many diverse areas, Festschrift or a repositioning Its continued evidence literary computing to sociolo- of a research agenda. The throughout the symposium — gy to computer engineering; talks, plenary discussions, and even (perhaps most notably) many of them were as well coffee-break conversations in the presentation of Tim known or influential as the taken together turned into a Berners-Lee, the youngest speakers themselves. Togeth- celebration of Bush’s vision speaker — and the warm er the speakers and partici- and its powerful influence in response of the audience pants represented the creating the world in which made it clear that this opti- multidisciplinary community we now live and an extension mistic social agenda still res- that reflects the many lines of of that vision into today’s onates. It seems that we are research and thought emanat- physical, social, and cyber- not too jaded, skeptical, or ing from Bush’s paper. space realities. post-modern to believe, 50 In addition, Andy van Dam The event was in fact an years later, that technology and Paul Kahn presented exhibition of Bush’s legacy, a can bring us “a new relation- background and supporting self-referential, interweaving ship between thinking man information about Vannevar (intertwingling, Ted Nelson and the sum of our knowl- Bush’s life and the history of would say) of all the themes — edge”, one that will promote attempts to transcend the lin- social, technological, and psy- “the application of science to earity enforced by a paper chological — from Bush’s the needs and desires of medium. Paul Kahn, co- paper. In the course of the man” (“As We May Think”). 48 interactions...march 1996 As We May Think “As We May Think” items are not fully permanent, memory is tran- In 1945 Vannevar Bush (1894-1974) published “As We sitory. Yet the speed of action, the intricacy of May Think” in The Atlantic Monthly. A condensed, illus- trails, the detail of mental pictures, is awe- trated version was published in Life later the same year. In inspiring beyond all else in nature. these articles Bush reflected on how technology could help solve the problems of post-war society. He was particularly At the center of his vision is an imagined device he calls a concerned about the explosion of scientific information and “memex”, what we see now as a workstation, based on a describes, among other things, a device, or rather system of variety of analog technologies such as microfilm storage devices, that could be used to help researchers search, and readers. record, analyze, and communicate information. These descriptions, and Bush’s accompanying account of how new The owner of the memex, let us tools could radically change the nature of intellectual work, say, is interested in the origin Sections of text were rich and compelling. Today almost every litany of the and properties of the bow and highlighted in pioneers of hypertext, computer-supported-cooperative arrow… He has dozens of possi- blue, are linked to work or interface theory begins with Bush and his extraor- bly pertinent books and articles “As We May dinarily influential “As We May Think”. in his memex. First he runs Think” which pre- Bush was well situated to reflect on the course and through an encyclopedia, finds cedes this article promise of technology, the explosion of knowledge, and the an interesting but sketchy article, emergence of large-scale collaboration in scientific endeav- leaves it projected. Next, in a ors. An accomplished engineer and research manager (see history, he finds another pertinent item, and ties the sidebar), he had served as the Director of the Office of Sci- two together. Thus he goes, building a trail of many entific Research and Development, coordinating the war items. Occasionally he inserts a comment of his own, efforts of 6,000 scientists against the dramatic backdrop of either linking it into the main trail or joining it by a the end of a great war and the beginning of the atomic age. side trail to a particular item. When it becomes evi- The opening paragraph of “As We May Think” captures this dent that the elastic properties of available materials context, as well as the pragmatism and optimism about the had a great deal to do with the bow, he branches off usefulness of technology that was characteristic of both on a side trail which takes him through textbooks on Bush and the symposium. elasticity and tables of physical constants. He inserts a page of longhand analysis on his own. Thus he This has not been a scientist’s war; it has been a war builds a trail of his interest through the maze of mate- in which all have had a part. The scientists, burying rials available to him. their old professional competition in the demand of a common cause, have shared greatly and learned much. [Later the owner finds a friend who is interested in this topic.] It has been exhilarating to work in effective partner- ship. Now, for many, this appears to be approaching A touch brings up the code book. Tapping a few keys an end. What are the scientists to do next? projects the head of the trail. A lever runs through it at will, stopping at intersecting items, going off on Bush goes on to describe a system that would allow scien- side excursions…. he sets a reproducer in action, pho- tists and others (he also mentions lawyers, physicians, busi- tographs the whole trail out, and passes it to a friend nessmen, and historians) not only to cope with the massive for insertion into his own memex, there to be linked increase in scientific production and the need for managing into the more general trail. large amounts of data in all walks of life, but to do so in ways more suited to human thought. Imagining a world in which such technology was deployed, Bush sees new products: The human mind does not work that way [i.e. linear- ly]. It operates by association. With one item in its Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear ready- grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested made with a mesh of associative trails running by the association of throughts, in accordance with through them, ready to be dropped into the memex some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the and there amplified, brain. It has other characteristics, of course; trails that are not frequently followed are prone to fade, and new professionals: interactions...march 1996 49 …there is a new profession of trail blazers, those who whom he collaborated on the hypertext system HES (Hyper- find delight establishing useful trails through the text Editing System) in 1967 and 1968.
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