Vannevar Bush
 Vannevar Bush    ( engineer, inventor) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 11 March 1890 |
| Died | 28 June 1974 (Age 84) |
| Alma mater | • Tufts University • Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Member of | Brookings Institution, Committee on the Present Danger |
King George VI awarded Bush a KBE in 1948 | |
Vannevar Bush was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the US Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all wartime military R&D was carried out, including important developments in radar and the initiation and early administration of the Manhattan Project. He was awarded a knighthood by King George VI in 1948.
Bush emphasised the importance of scientific research to national security and economic well-being, and was chiefly responsible for the movement that led to the creation of the National Science Foundation.[1]
Contents
Background
Bush joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1919, and founded the company that became Raytheon in 1922.[2] Bush became vice president of MIT and dean of the MIT School of Engineering in 1932, and president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1938.
Inventor
During his career, Bush patented a string of his own inventions. He is known particularly for his engineering work on analog computers, and for the memex. Starting in 1927, Bush constructed a differential analyser, a mechanical analog computer with some digital components that could solve differential equations with as many as 18 independent variables. An offshoot of the work at MIT by Bush and others was the beginning of digital circuit design theory. The memex, which he began developing in the 1930s (heavily influenced by Emanuel Goldberg's "Statistical Machine" from 1928) was a hypothetical adjustable microfilm viewer with a structure analogous to that of hypertext. The memex and Bush's 1945 essay "As We May Think" influenced generations of computer scientists, who drew inspiration from his vision of the future.
Publications
- Bush, Vannevar; Timbie, William H. (1922). Principles of Electrical Engineering. John Wiley & Sons – via Internet Archive.
- Bush, Vannevar; Wiener, Norbert (1929). Operational Circuit Analysis. New York: J. Wiley & Sons. OCLC 2167931.
- Bush, Vannevar (1945). Science, the Endless Frontier: a Report to the President (PDF). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. OCLC 1594001. Retrieved May 31, 2025.
- Bush, Vannevar (1946). Endless Horizons. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press. OCLC 1152058.
- Bush, Vannevar (1949). Modern Arms and Free Men: a Discussion of the Role of Science in Preserving Democracy. New York: Simon and Schuster. OCLC 568075.
- Bush, Vannevar (1967). Science Is Not Enough. New York: Morrow. OCLC 520108.
- Bush, Vannevar (1970). Pieces of the Action. New York: Morrow. OCLC 93366.
References
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