Lecture 2

After WW2, people started putting faith in machines that didn’t work, and they made them work.

The need for scientific calculations exploded.

Cold war science

In the US:

• During WW2, Manhattan project was successful in new nuclear/medical applications that could develop further after the war
• worldwide computer power dick measuring contest — who has the bigger, more powerful computer?
  • Vannevar Bush was aware and started with the ENIAC during the war, but it wasn’t done till like 1945
• hand-in-hand with space race — NASA
• another measuring contest — Atomic power

Continental EU:

• mood was a mix of fatalism and optimism, scientists felt like science could offer a lot
  • in late 1940s — rebuilding the nation and economy (Marshall plan)
  • Mathematisch Centrum (1946) would help to rebuild the Netherlands
• people started realising that computers really *are *important
  • Hans Freudenthal — “Rekenmachines winnen den oorlog”
  • JJSS — “Le Defi Americain” (The American Challenge)
  • needed for stuff like aeronautical calculations, code breaking (Bletchley Park), radar

Dinosaurs (some of the first computers)

• US
  • “Manchester Baby” in Manchester, 1948
  • “EDSAC” in Cambridge, 1949, Maurice Wilkes
• EU
  • in the EU, none of the computer innovations originated in the administrative tradition, it was all scientific
  • Amsterdam
    • mostly Mathematisch Centrum: Aad van Wijngaarden, Jan van der Corput
    • ARRA (1952), ARRA II (1954), ARMAC (1956), Electrologica X1
  • Delft
    • Willem van der Poel — built ARCO/Testudo
    • others were ZERO, PTERA, ZEBRA, STANTEC
  • Eindhoven
    • Wim Nijenhuis built PETER for acoustic measurement, to improve music industry
    • following were NATLAB, PASCAL, STEVIN
• all of these used components like relays, vacuum tubes, etc. they were often unreliable, and had poorly soldered connections.

For the public — this was the Golden Age of Science Fiction!

• most people never actually saw a computer, yet were still putting money in
• the ideas had to be sold to the public, otherwise they’d protest
• Dystopian literature in Europe
• themes were totalitarianism, nationalism, surveillance, censorship
• Examples:
  • Literature:
    • Isaac Asimov — “I, Robot”, “Foundation”
    • Aldous Huxley — “Brave New World”
    • George Orwell — “1984“ (this was huuuge and still is)
    • Robert Heinlein — “Starship Troopers”, “Stranger in a Strange Land”
    • Arthur C. Clarke — “Interplanetary Flight”, “Childhood’s End”, “Rama”, “2001“ (fantastic book and film, directed by Stanley Kubrick)
    • Philip K. Dick — “What makes us human?”
  • Films:
    • Metropolis
    • Desk Set (1957)
    • Forbidden Planet (1956)