The time when man began to control the environment, he has been plagued by his
limited ability to speculate.
His failure to accurately predict the effect in the contraposed action.
This is the result of his not being able to consider and relate
all the factors in a problem.
Evidence of this inability can be seen in the persistence of a certain kind of
myth involving three wishes.
In a frantic effort to reap immediate rewards, the first wish
is often not too wise.
The second usually tends to overcorrect.
Our hero can consider himself lucky if after the last wish he
ends up just where he started.
But there were men whose wishes were not only prudent
but had a habit of coming true.
These men and women were artists and had certain
characteristics in common.
They were seldom bored with anything.
They were constantly building up stores of information in active memory banks.
When confronted with a specific
need, they would call on these memory banks for information, which they would run
through, sort out, and relate to the problem at hand.
These men could speculate and could predict.
They were artists, artists in many fields, architecture,
mechanics, medicine, science, politics,
and the art of relating factors.
It is often not a conscious art, and the degree to which it is operative can tend
to make one normal, bright, super
bright, or genius.
Numbers were used to count, but soon they were also being used as abstract
symbols for states of being.
Values were given to mass, speed, inertia, and the forces of gravity.
Such measurement was an enormous help to creative thinking.
Man was learning to numerically relate and to predict.
Theories were developed by which the many factors in a
problem could be numerically related.
But the magnitude of the calculations necessary made
many such theories impractical.
In the last century, the complications of our society have been compounding
themselves, and it began to look as though the science of numerical
relationships could never catch up.
For a long time in the world of numbers, man has been developing tools to help
him handle increasing amounts of data.
Something has now emerged that might make even our most
elegant theories workable.
The recent acceleration has been fantastic.
The electronic calculator has already become a tool upon which much of
our daily activities depend.
A tool which has broadened the range of man's concepts and intuition, much the
way other tools have broadened man's range of communications, or man's range of
travel, or the phenomenal range of his control over environment.
With the computer, as with any tool, the concept and direction
must come from the man.
The task that is set and the data that is given must be man's decision
and his responsibility.
This is information.
The proper use of it can bring a new dignity to mankind.
Properly related, it can maintain a balance between
man's needs and his resources.
In many aspects, these are information machines capable of storing, processing,
and relating a vast quantity of information.
They process information so that it can be made meaningful at the human scale.
Computers are generally used in any of three ways.
First, as a control or balance.
Second, as a function of design.
Third, as a simulation or model of life, where we can see the effect
before taking the action.
As a control or balance, the calculator keeps our
complicated systems functioning.
It determines the logistics of raw material, its inventory and flow,
history and performance of tools and of personnel,
production rate and quality, public utilities rates and flow,
cost accounting, payroll, billing, and all the ramifications of insurance.
And in addition, presents the broadest possible basis for making decisions.
As a function of design, the calculator provides creative man a higher platform
upon which to stand and from which to work.
Data processing removes the drudgery but imposes new and broad responsibilities.
The designer must be able to state precisely what it is he needs to know.
This is not always so easy.
He must formulate a general plan of procedure.
This plan or program takes the greater part of all the time involved.
He must write a concise step-by-step list of instructions, translate it into a
digestible code and feed it to the computer.
Then he must provide the machine with all pertinent background
information and related data.
The preparation may have taken months, the actual calculation hours or even
minutes, but once set up, it can attack the problem with infinite variations
and trustworthy memory.
Perhaps the most challenging use of the computer is the
simulation of real situations.
If, for example, a machine is properly programmed and is provided with sufficient
numerical data concerning a chemical plant, then the computer begins to take on
the functions of a working mathematical model of that chemical plant, in which it
is possible to determine the probable effects of many possible courses of action.
Today there are working mathematical models of railroad systems, rocket engines,
complete reactors, and whole living communities.
The calculator is helping to define society's most complicated problems.
It is a tool for turning inspiration into fruitful prediction.
As an information machine, it has done much to broaden the
base of our growing concepts.
But the real miracle is the promise that there will also be room for those
smallest details that have been the basis for man's most rewarding wishes.
This is a story of a technique in the service of mankind.
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