LECTURE 25 - April 6/99

• MILITARY NEEDS have been the single most impt. source of support for ADVANCED COMPUTER RESEARCH since World War II
• this was NEED-DRIVEN research
• this military SPONSORSHIP also helped to DEFINE the context of COMPUTER development
• i.e. computer R & D projects took place in INDUSTRIAL and UNIVERSITY laboratories (not in MILITARY facilities)

• scope was HUGE: i.e. DoD sponsored the development of INTEGRATED CIRCUITS in the 1950s
• DoD purchased the ENTIRE first-year output of the INTEGRATED CIRCUIT manufacturing industry (worth $4 million)
• COBOL (1960s) and ADA (1980s) were MILITARY programming languages

• EARLY history of computing borne out of CALCULATION/COUNTING:
  • ABACUS
  • PASCAL's 1642 counting machine
  • LEIBNIZ's followed in 1671

• in this film you will get the history of COMPUTING from Babbage to Turing
• conspicuously absent is John ATANASOFF of Bell Laboratories
• many consider him to be the inventor of the first ELECTRONIC DIGITAL COMPUTER in 1940
• Atanasoff got into a PATENT DISPUTE with Mauchly and Eckert
• also film doesn't mention Vannevar BUSH
• BUSH developed an analog computer called the DIFFERENTIAL ANALYZER

• COMPUTER MANUFACTURING sector has been the SINGLE GREATEST contribution to PRODUCTIVITY in US commerce

1. Charles BABBAGE (1792-1871)
   • built ADDING machine (1822)
   • DIFFERENCE engine (1833)
   • ANALYTIC machine
2. J. M. JACQUARD (1757-1834)
   • his loom used punchcards
3. Countess of LOVELACE (1815-52)
   • Lord BYRON's daughter Augusta Ada
   • first computer programmer
4. Alan TURING (1912-54)
   • ENIGMA and FISH code-breaker
   • secret work at Bletchley Park (manor house in Buckinghamshire, England)
   • Colossus
   • ACE (Automatic Computing Engine)
   • "Turing test"
5. Konrad ZUSE (1910-73)
   • German computer pioneer (built first one in 1938)
   • followed up with models Z2, Z3, S1 and Z4
6. Herman GOLDSTINE (dates unknown)
   • ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator/Computer)
   • Moore School of Engineering (Philadelphia, PA)
7. John von NEUMANN (1903-57)
   • MANIAC
8. John MAUCHLY (1907-80) and J. Presper ECKERT (1919- )
   • UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) - first commercial computer
   • first commercial computer company: Eckert and Mauchly Computer Corporation
   • EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer)

LECTURE 26

• this course has offered a GLIMPSE into SCIENCE and its influence on society -- and society's influence on SCIENCE

• gone from the Ancients through the middle ages of Roger Bacon and estab. of UNIVERSITIES, Renaissance world of Da Vinci, Copernicus and Francis Bacon, through the Enlightenment and French Revolution, Industrial Revolution and two World Wars of this century to genetic engineering and AI.

1. TRANSFER of scientific knowledge
2. the relationship between SCIENCE and RELIGION
3. SCIENCE and POLITICS
4. relationship between SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY
5. PROFESSIONALIZATION and INSTITUTIONALIZATION of SCIENCE
6. SCIENCE and the MILITARY
7. the ethics of SCIENCE

1. How to DEFINE history of SCIENCE?
2. Define SCIENCE vs. TECHNOLOGY?
3. Are there any NEW SCIENCES to DISCOVER?

• i.e. in 20th century, have seen emergence of GENETICS, MICROBIOLOGY, COMPUTER science, ... what else?

• your projections, WITHIN THE DEFINITIONS, of 21st century SCIENCE (vs. 21st century TECHNOLOGY) ...

HAVE we put TOO MUCH STOCK in SCIENCE?

• there are limits: WHEN do we acknowledge our failures?
• 1) 10 minute VIDEO clip of A.I.
• 2) Scientific HOAXES

• idea of producing ENERGY through NUCLEAR FUSION
• need a reactor that can generate TEMPERATURES hotter than that of the SUN
• COLD FUSION promised to meet ENERGY NEEDS of the WORLD (no longer need PETROLEUM, SOLAR or NUCLEAR energy)
• in 1989, two chemists B. Stanley PONS and Martin FLEISCHMANN said they'd built a bench-top FUSION PERCOLATOR (2 electrodes and a slug of HEAVY WATER)
• when other scientists checked it out, RESULTS not REPLICABLE
• U of Utah let the patent lapse and P and F moved to Europe

5) Who is responsible for the USES of NEW SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES? -- ETHICS

• "If I knew they were going to do this, I would have been a shoemaker/plumber?" Einstein, re: bomb research

Does supporter BIAS exist?

• i.e. example of LYSENKOISM

TROFIM LYSENKO

• born a peasant in 1898
• rose to become STALIN's favorite scientist in the 1930s and 40s
• rejected MENDELIAN genetics
• instead believed that all living organisms passed on to SUCCEEDING GENERATIONS characteristics ACQUIRED during their lifetime
• i.e. spring WHEAT could be "TAUGHT" to be WINTER wheat
• solution to chronic crop PROBLEMS
• but it fit with the POLITICS of the regime: no DIFFERENTIATION -- all people and organisms have EQUAL POTENTIAL
• those who disagreed were KILLED, JAILED
• SOVIET genetics was suspended for 25 years
• didn't overcome effects of LYSENKOISM until the early 1960s (removed from power in 1964)
• to this day, RUSSIAN BIOLOGY is playing catch-up with the WEST
• died in 1977

• was the early science of ARISTOTLE and PLATO harmless?
• is today's science HARMLESS?