Vannevar Bush's essay As We May Think, first published in The Atlantic Monthly in July 1945, argued that as humans turned from war, scientific efforts should shift from increasing physical abilities to making all previous collected humanknowledge more accessible.
His article described something in many ways like today's World Wide Web. It also included features still not elegantly available, as of 2005, such as voice-activated automatic dictation.
The system, which he called memex, was described as based on what was thought, at the time, to be the wave of the future: Ultra high resolution microfilm reels, coupled to multiple screen viewers and cameras, by electromechanical controls.
The 'The Atlantic Monthly' article was followed, in November 1945, by a Life magazine article which showed illustrations of the proposed memex desk and automatic typewriter.
Yet many consider Bush to be the Godfather of our wired age often making reference to his 1945 essay, "As We MayThink." In his article, Bush described a theoretical machine he called a "memex," which was to enhance human memory by allowing the user to store and retrieve documents linked by associations.
So it may have been partly that, and partly my association with my grandfather, who was a whaling skipper.
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).
There may be millions of fine thoughts, and the account of the experience on which they are based, all encased within stone walls of acceptable architectural form; but if the scholar can get at only one a week by diligent search, his syntheses are not likely to keep up with the current scene.
In order that the picture may not be too commonplace, by reason of sticking to present-day patterns, it may be well to mention one such possibility, not to prophesy but merely to suggest, for prophecy based on extension of the known has substance, while prophecy founded on the unknown is only a doubly involved guess.
His excursion may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand, with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.
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