The Power of an Idea
In July, 1945, an article was published in The Atlantic Monthly called “As We May Think” by a scientist named Vannevar Bush. In it he imagined the future, equipped only with ideas: a futuristic device called a “Memex,” which would allow a user to display books and tapes from a library.
Later, in 1965, Ted Nelson invented the concept of “hypertext” – text with links to and from objects (other text, images, and so on). He and others had applications for “hypertext” but weren’t very successful in making them ubiquitous.
Finally, a contract software engineer at CERN, a European research center, proposed and implemented the web as we know it today. He took the essences of Vannevar’s Memex and molded it into what we now know as the web. And, of course, it is doubtful that Tim Berners-Lee knew what he’d wrought. He writes about what he envisioned:
The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information. Its universality is essential: the fact that a hypertext link can point to anything, be it personal, local or global, be it draft or highly polished. There was a second part of the dream, too, dependent on the Web being so generally used that it became a realistic mirror (or in fact the primary embodiment) of the ways in which we work and play and socialize. That was that once the state of our interactions was on line, we could then use computers to help us analyze it, make sense of what we are doing, where we individually fit in, and how we can better work together1.
It’s amazing to see ideas come to life and then to mature into something that is beyond the reach of their original intent. This is why I love software development although it's something we can see in almost any facet of life as long as we're willing to pay attention.
My thoughts return to Vannevar Bush, who put significant time and effort into something purely theoretical, even laughable to most people (who at the time didn’t even have television in wide circulation), what were his motivations? Especially when you consider that he had no way of implementing his ideas:
His main purpose in writing the article was to influence "thinking regarding science in the modern world" and to "emphasize the opportunity for the application of science in a field which is largely neglected by science" (Bush in Nyce & Kahn, 81). That field was the automation or augmentation of human thought2.
Imagine yourself, for a moment, in 1945 trying to have a conversation about the “augmentation of human thought.” It is a mind bending activity to consider in a world where not even calculators were in wide circulation. It would have required some impracticality. You would have to have been a maverick. You’d need a considerable dose of daring about you.
Now the web is ubiquitous. Book a flight. Buy a book. Research a paper. Do religious evangelism. Collaborate on research. Learn a different language. Read an Op-Ed. Seek medical advice. View an art exhibit. Check your email. Discover what is studied at MIT. It is much more than a library of tapes and text. It is much more than even Berners-Lee envisioned in sharing of information. Above all it is not a waste of time, a fantasy that can only be maintained with a deliberate amount of ignorance3.
Bush died in 1974. He never saw his ideas become ubiquitous. I can imagine a colleague chiding him for writing in The Atlantic: why not stick to applicable science? Why write for the mainstream? Why write fiction?
I’m glad that his holy curiosity4 got the better of him.
1Original reference and more on TBL here.
2Original reference and more on VB here. Does the web augment human thought? Read the definition.
3I have no one specific in mind here.
4
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity." - Albert Einstein
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