1945.7 正如我们所想的那样

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As We May Think
“Consider a future device …  in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.”

By Vannevar Bush

The telegram was a breakthrough in communication technology, which Vannevar Bush imagined could evolve in unprecedented ways. (AP)
JULY 1945 ISSUE
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As Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Dr. Vannevar Bush has coordinated the activities of some six thousand leading American scientists in the application of science to warfare. In this significant article he holds up an incentive for scientists when the fighting has ceased. He urges that men of science should then turn to the massive task of making more accessible our bewildering store of knowledge. For years inventions have extended man's physical powers rather than the powers of his mind. Trip hammers that multiply the fists, microscopes that sharpen the eye, and engines of destruction and detection are new results, but not the end results, of modern science. Now, says Dr. Bush, instruments are at hand which, if properly developed, will give man access to and command over the inherited knowledge of the ages. The perfection of these pacific instruments should be the first objective of our scientists as they emerge from their war work. Like Emerson's famous address of 1837 on "The American Scholar," this paper by Dr. Bush calls for a new relationship between thinking man and the sum of our knowledge. — THE EDITOR


This has not been a scientist's war; it has been a war in which all have had a part. The scientists, burying their old professional competition in the demand of a common cause, have shared greatly and learned much. It has been exhilarating to work in effective partnership. Now, for many, this appears to be approaching an end. What are the scientists to do next?

For the biologists, and particularly for the medical scientists, there can be little indecision, for their war has hardly required them to leave the old paths. Many indeed have been able to carry on their war research in their familiar peacetime laboratories. Their objectives remain much the same.

It is the physicists who have been thrown most violently off stride, who have left academic pursuits for the making of strange destructive gadgets, who have had to devise new methods for their unanticipated assignments. They have done their part on the devices that made it possible to turn back the enemy, have worked in combined effort with the physicists of our allies. They have felt within themselves the stir of achievement. They have been part of a great team. Now, as peace approaches, one asks where they will find objectives worthy of their best.

1
Of what lasting benefit has been man's use of science and of the new instruments which his research brought into existence? First, they have increased his control of his material environment. They have improved his food, his clothing, his shelter; they have increased his security and released him partly from the bondage of bare existence. They have given him increased knowledge of his own biological processes so that he has had a progressive freedom from disease and an increased span of life. They are illuminating the interactions of his physiological and psychological functions, giving the promise of an improved mental health.

Science has provided the swiftest communication between individuals; it has provided a record of ideas and has enabled man to manipulate and to make extracts from that record so that knowledge evolves and endures throughout the life of a race rather than that of an individual.

There is a growing mountain of research. But there is increased evidence that we are being bogged down today as specialization extends. The investigator is staggered by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers—conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember, as they appear. Yet specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress, and the effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial.

Professionally our methods of transmitting and reviewing the results of research are generations old and by now are totally inadequate for their purpose. If the aggregate time spent in writing scholarly works and in reading them could be evaluated, the ratio between these amounts of time might well be startling. Those who conscientiously attempt to keep abreast of current thought, even in restricted fields, by close and continuous reading might well shy away from an examination calculated to show how much of the previous month's efforts could be produced on call. Mendel's concept of the laws of genetics was lost to the world for a generation because his publication did not reach the few who were capable of grasping and extending it; and this sort of catastrophe is undoubtedly being repeated all about us, as truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential.

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The difficulty seems to be, not so much that we publish unduly in view of the extent and variety of present day interests, but rather that publication has been extended far beyond our present ability to make real use of the record. The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships.

But there are signs of a change as new and powerful instrumentalities come into use. Photocells capable of seeing things in a physical sense, advanced photography which can record what is seen or even what is not, thermionic tubes capable of controlling potent forces under the guidance of less power than a mosquito uses to vibrate his wings, cathode ray tubes rendering visible an occurrence so brief that by comparison a microsecond is a long time, relay combinations which will carry out involved sequences of movements more reliably than any human operator and thousands of times as fast—there are plenty of mechanical aids with which to effect a transformation in scientific records.

Two centuries ago Leibnitz invented a calculating machine which embodied most of the essential features of recent keyboard devices, but it could not then come into use. The economics of the situation were against it: the labor involved in constructing it, before the days of mass production, exceeded the labor to be saved by its use, since all it could accomplish could be duplicated by sufficient use of pencil and paper. Moreover, it would have been subject to frequent breakdown, so that it could not have been depended upon; for at that time and long after, complexity and unreliability were synonymous.

Babbage, even with remarkably generous support for his time, could not produce his great arithmetical machine. His idea was sound enough, but construction and maintenance costs were then too heavy. Had a Pharaoh been given detailed and explicit designs of an automobile, and had he understood them completely, it would have taxed the resources of his kingdom to have fashioned the thousands of parts for a single car, and that car would have broken down on the first trip to Giza.

Machines with interchangeable parts can now be constructed with great economy of effort. In spite of much complexity, they perform reliably. Witness the humble typewriter, or the movie camera, or the automobile. Electrical contacts have ceased to stick when thoroughly understood. Note the automatic telephone exchange, which has hundreds of thousands of such contacts, and yet is reliable. A spider web of metal, sealed in a thin glass container, a wire heated to brilliant glow, in short, the thermionic tube of radio sets, is made by the hundred million, tossed about in packages, plugged into sockets—and it works! Its gossamer parts, the precise location and alignment involved in its construction, would have occupied a master craftsman of the guild for months; now it is built for thirty cents. The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.

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A record if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted. Today we make the record conventionally by writing and photography, followed by printing; but we also record on film, on wax disks, and on magnetic wires. Even if utterly new recording procedures do not appear, these present ones are certainly in the process of modification and extension.

Certainly progress in photography is not going to stop. Faster material and lenses, more automatic cameras, finer-grained sensitive compounds to allow an extension of the minicamera idea, are all imminent. Let us project this trend ahead to a logical, if not inevitable, outcome. The camera hound of the future wears on his forehead a lump a little larger than a walnut. It takes pictures 3 millimeters square, later to be projected or enlarged, which after all involves only a factor of 10 beyond present practice. The lens is of universal focus, down to any distance accommodated by the unaided eye, simply because it is of short focal length. There is a built-in photocell on the walnut such as we now have on at least one camera, which automatically adjusts exposure for a wide range of illumination. There is film in the walnut for a hundred exposures, and the spring for operating its shutter and shifting its film is wound once for all when the film clip is inserted. It produces its result in full color. It may well be stereoscopic, and record with two spaced glass eyes, for striking improvements in stereoscopic technique are just around the corner.

The cord which trips its shutter may reach down a man's sleeve within easy reach of his fingers. A quick squeeze, and the picture is taken. On a pair of ordinary glasses is a square of fine lines near the top of one lens, where it is out of the way of ordinary vision. When an object appears in that square, it is lined up for its picture. As the scientist of the future moves about the laboratory or the field, every time he looks at something worthy of the record, he trips the shutter and in it goes, without even an audible click. Is this all fantastic? The only fantastic thing about it is the idea of making as many pictures as would result from its use.

Will there be dry photography? It is already here in two forms. When Brady made his Civil War pictures, the plate had to be wet at the time of exposure. Now it has to be wet during development instead. In the future perhaps it need not be wetted at all. There have long been films impregnated with diazo dyes which form a picture without development, so that it is already there as soon as the camera has been operated. An exposure to ammonia gas destroys the unexposed dye, and the picture can then be taken out into the light and examined. The process is now slow, but someone may speed it up, and it has no grain difficulties such as now keep photographic researchers busy. Often it would be advantageous to be able to snap the camera and to look at the picture immediately.

Another process now in use is also slow, and more or less clumsy. For fifty years impregnated papers have been used which turn dark at every point where an electrical contact touches them, by reason of the chemical change thus produced in an iodine compound included in the paper. They have been used to make records, for a pointer moving across them can leave a trail behind. If the electrical potential on the pointer is varied as it moves, the line becomes light or dark in accordance with the potential.

This scheme is now used in facsimile transmission. The pointer draws a set of closely spaced lines across the paper one after another. As it moves, its potential is varied in accordance with a varying current received over wires from a distant station, where these variations are produced by a photocell which is similarly scanning a picture. At every instant the darkness of the line being drawn is made equal to the darkness of the point on the picture being observed by the photocell. Thus, when the whole picture has been covered, a replica appears at the receiving end.

A scene itself can be just as well looked over line by line by the photocell in this way as can a photograph of the scene. This whole apparatus constitutes a camera, with the added feature, which can be dispensed with if desired, of making its picture at a distance. It is slow, and the picture is poor in detail. Still, it does give another process of dry photography, in which the picture is finished as soon as it is taken.

It would be a brave man who would predict that such a process will always remain clumsy, slow, and faulty in detail. Television equipment today transmits sixteen reasonably good pictures a second, and it involves only two essential differences from the process described above. For one, the record is made by a moving beam of electrons rather than a moving pointer, for the reason that an electron beam can sweep across the picture very rapidly indeed. The other difference involves merely the use of a screen which glows momentarily when the electrons hit, rather than a chemically treated paper or film which is permanently altered. This speed is necessary in television, for motion pictures rather than stills are the object.

Use chemically treated film in place of the glowing screen, allow the apparatus to transmit one picture only rather than a succession, and a rapid camera for dry photography results. The treated film needs to be far faster in action than present examples, but it probably could be. More serious is the objection that this scheme would involve putting the film inside a vacuum chamber, for electron beams behave normally only in such a rarefied environment. This difficulty could be avoided by allowing the electron beam to play on one side of a partition, and by pressing the film against the other side, if this partition were such as to allow the electrons to go through perpendicular to its surface, and to prevent them from spreading out sideways. Such partitions, in crude form, could certainly be constructed, and they will hardly hold up the general development.

Like dry photography, microphotography still has a long way to go. The basic scheme of reducing the size of the record, and examining it by projection rather than directly, has possibilities too great to be ignored. The combination of optical projection and photographic reduction is already producing some results in microfilm for scholarly purposes, and the potentialities are highly suggestive. Today, with microfilm, reductions by a linear factor of 20 can be employed and still produce full clarity when the material is re-enlarged for examination. The limits are set by the graininess of the film, the excellence of the optical system, and the efficiency of the light sources employed. All of these are rapidly improving.

Assume a linear ratio of 100 for future use. Consider film of the same thickness as paper, although thinner film will certainly be usable. Even under these conditions there would be a total factor of 10,000 between the bulk of the ordinary record on books, and its microfilm replica. The Encyclopædia Britannica could be reduced to the volume of a matchbox. A library of a million volumes could be compressed into one end of a desk. If the human race has produced since the invention of movable type a total record, in the form of magazines, newspapers, books, tracts, advertising blurbs, correspondence, having a volume corresponding to a billion books, the whole affair, assembled and compressed, could be lugged off in a moving van. Mere compression, of course, is not enough; one needs not only to make and store a record but also be able to consult it, and this aspect of the matter comes later. Even the modern great library is not generally consulted; it is nibbled at by a few.

Compression is important, however, when it comes to costs. The material for the microfilm Britannica would cost a nickel, and it could be mailed anywhere for a cent. What would it cost to print a million copies? To print a sheet of newspaper, in a large edition, costs a small fraction of a cent. The entire material of the Britannica in reduced microfilm form would go on a sheet eight and one-half by eleven inches. Once it is available, with the photographic reproduction methods of the future, duplicates in large quantities could probably be turned out for a cent apiece beyond the cost of materials. The preparation of the original copy? That introduces the next aspect of the subject.

3
To make the record, we now push a pencil or tap a typewriter. Then comes the process of digestion and correction, followed by an intricate process of typesetting, printing, and distribution. To consider the first stage of the procedure, will the author of the future cease writing by hand or typewriter and talk directly to the record? He does so indirectly, by talking to a stenographer or a wax cylinder; but the elements are all present if he wishes to have his talk directly produce a typed record. All he needs to do is to take advantage of existing mechanisms and to alter his language.

At a recent World Fair a machine called a Voder was shown. A girl stroked its keys and it emitted recognizable speech. No human vocal chords entered into the procedure at any point; the keys simply combined some electrically produced vibrations and passed these on to a loud-speaker. In the Bell Laboratories there is the converse of this machine, called a Vocoder. The loudspeaker is replaced by a microphone, which picks up sound. Speak to it, and the corresponding keys move. This may be one element of the postulated system.

The other element is found in the stenotype, that somewhat disconcerting device encountered usually at public meetings. A girl strokes its keys languidly and looks about the room and sometimes at the speaker with a disquieting gaze. From it emerges a typed strip which records in a phonetically simplified language a record of what the speaker is supposed to have said. Later this strip is retyped into ordinary language, for in its nascent form it is intelligible only to the initiated. Combine these two elements, let the Vocoder run the stenotype, and the result is a machine which types when talked to.

Our present languages are not especially adapted to this sort of mechanization, it is true. It is strange that the inventors of universal languages have not seized upon the idea of producing one which better fitted the technique for transmitting and recording speech. Mechanization may yet force the issue, especially in the scientific field; whereupon scientific jargon would become still less intelligible to the layman.

One can now picture a future investigator in his laboratory. His hands are free, and he is not anchored. As he moves about and observes, he photographs and comments. Time is automatically recorded to tie the two records together. If he goes into the field, he may be connected by radio to his recorder. As he ponders over his notes in the evening, he again talks his comments into the record. His typed record, as well as his photographs, may both be in miniature, so that he projects them for examination.

Much needs to occur, however, between the collection of data and observations, the extraction of parallel material from the existing record, and the final insertion of new material into the general body of the common record. For mature thought there is no mechanical substitute. But creative thought and essentially repetitive thought are very different things. For the latter there are, and may be, powerful mechanical aids.

Adding a column of figures is a repetitive thought process, and it was long ago properly relegated to the machine. True, the machine is sometimes controlled by a keyboard, and thought of a sort enters in reading the figures and poking the corresponding keys, but even this is avoidable. Machines have been made which will read typed figures by photocells and then depress the corresponding keys; these are combinations of photocells for scanning the type, electric circuits for sorting the consequent variations, and relay circuits for interpreting the result into the action of solenoids to pull the keys down.

All this complication is needed because of the clumsy way in which we have learned to write figures. If we recorded them positionally, simply by the configuration of a set of dots on a card, the automatic reading mechanism would become comparatively simple. In fact if the dots are holes, we have the punched-card machine long ago produced by Hollorith for the purposes of the census, and now used throughout business. Some types of complex businesses could hardly operate without these machines.

Adding is only one operation. To perform arithmetical computation involves also subtraction, multiplication, and division, and in addition some method for temporary storage of results, removal from storage for further manipulation, and recording of final results by printing. Machines for these purposes are now of two types: keyboard machines for accounting and the like, manually controlled for the insertion of data, and usually automatically controlled as far as the sequence of operations is concerned; and punched-card machines in which separate operations are usually delegated to a series of machines, and the cards then transferred bodily from one to another. Both forms are very useful; but as far as complex computations are concerned, both are still in embryo.

Rapid electrical counting appeared soon after the physicists found it desirable to count cosmic rays. For their own purposes the physicists promptly constructed thermionic-tube equipment capable of counting electrical impulses at the rate of 100,000 a second. The advanced arithmetical machines of the future will be electrical in nature, and they will perform at 100 times present speeds, or more.

Moreover, they will be far more versatile than present commercial machines, so that they may readily be adapted for a wide variety of operations. They will be controlled by a control card or film, they will select their own data and manipulate it in accordance with the instructions thus inserted, they will perform complex arithmetical computations at exceedingly high speeds, and they will record results in such form as to be readily available for distribution or for later further manipulation. Such machines will have enormous appetites. One of them will take instructions and data from a whole roomful of girls armed with simple key board punches, and will deliver sheets of computed results every few minutes. There will always be plenty of things to compute in the detailed affairs of millions of people doing complicated things.

4
The repetitive processes of thought are not confined however, to matters of arithmetic and statistics. In fact, every time one combines and records facts in accordance with established logical processes, the creative aspect of thinking is concerned only with the selection of the data and the process to be employed and the manipulation thereafter is repetitive in nature and hence a fit matter to be relegated to the machine. Not so much has been done along these lines, beyond the bounds of arithmetic, as might be done, primarily because of the economics of the situation. The needs of business and the extensive market obviously waiting, assured the advent of mass-produced arithmetical machines just as soon as production methods were sufficiently advanced.

With machines for advanced analysis no such situation existed; for there was and is no extensive market; the users of advanced methods of manipulating data are a very small part of the population. There are, however, machines for solving differential equations—and functional and integral equations, for that matter. There are many special machines, such as the harmonic synthesizer which predicts the tides. There will be many more, appearing certainly first in the hands of the scientist and in small numbers.

If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability. The abacus, with its beads strung on parallel wires, led the Arabs to positional numeration and the concept of zero many centuries before the rest of the world; and it was a useful tool—so useful that it still exists.

It is a far cry from the abacus to the modern keyboard accounting machine. It will be an equal step to the arithmetical machine of the future. But even this new machine will not take the scientist where he needs to go. Relief must be secured from laborious detailed manipulation of higher mathematics as well, if the users of it are to free their brains for something more than repetitive detailed transformations in accordance with established rules. A mathematician is not a man who can readily manipulate figures; often he cannot. He is not even a man who can readily perform the transformations of equations by the use of calculus. He is primarily an individual who is skilled in the use of symbolic logic on a high plane, and especially he is a man of intuitive judgment in the choice of the manipulative processes he employs.

All else he should be able to turn over to his mechanism, just as confidently as he turns over the propelling of his car to the intricate mechanism under the hood. Only then will mathematics be practically effective in bringing the growing knowledge of atomistics to the useful solution of the advanced problems of chemistry, metallurgy, and biology. For this reason there still come more machines to handle advanced mathematics for the scientist. Some of them will be sufficiently bizarre to suit the most fastidious connoisseur of the present artifacts of civilization.

5
The scientist, however, is not the only person who manipulates data and examines the world about him by the use of logical processes, although he sometimes preserves this appearance by adopting into the fold anyone who becomes logical, much in the manner in which a British labor leader is elevated to knighthood. Whenever logical processes of thought are employed—that is, whenever thought for a time runs along an accepted groove—there is an opportunity for the machine. Formal logic used to be a keen instrument in the hands of the teacher in his trying of students' souls. It is readily possible to construct a machine which will manipulate premises in accordance with formal logic, simply by the clever use of relay circuits. Put a set of premises into such a device and turn the crank, and it will readily pass out conclusion after conclusion, all in accordance with logical law, and with no more slips than would be expected of a keyboard adding machine.

Logic can become enormously difficult, and it would undoubtedly be well to produce more assurance in its use. The machines for higher analysis have usually been equation solvers. Ideas are beginning to appear for equation transformers, which will rearrange the relationship expressed by an equation in accordance with strict and rather advanced logic. Progress is inhibited by the exceedingly crude way in which mathematicians express their relationships. They employ a symbolism which grew like Topsy and has little consistency; a strange fact in that most logical field.

A new symbolism, probably positional, must apparently precede the reduction of mathematical transformations to machine processes. Then, on beyond the strict logic of the mathematician, lies the application of logic in everyday affairs. We may some day click off arguments on a machine with the same assurance that we now enter sales on a cash register. But the machine of logic will not look like a cash register, even of the streamlined model.

So much for the manipulation of ideas and their insertion into the record. Thus far we seem to be worse off than before—for we can enormously extend the record; yet even in its present bulk we can hardly consult it. This is a much larger matter than merely the extraction of data for the purposes of scientific research; it involves the entire process by which man profits by his inheritance of acquired knowledge. The prime action of use is selection, and here we are halting indeed. 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.


Selection, in this broad sense, is a stone adze in the hands of a cabinetmaker. Yet, in a narrow sense and in other areas, something has already been done mechanically on selection. The personnel officer of a factory drops a stack of a few thousand employee cards into a selecting machine, sets a code in accordance with an established convention, and produces in a short time a list of all employees who live in Trenton and know Spanish. Even such devices are much too slow when it comes, for example, to matching a set of fingerprints with one of five million on file. Selection devices of this sort will soon be speeded up from their present rate of reviewing data at a few hundred a minute. By the use of photocells and microfilm they will survey items at the rate of a thousand a second, and will print out duplicates of those selected.

This process, however, is simple selection: it proceeds by examining in turn every one of a large set of items, and by picking out those which have certain specified characteristics. There is another form of selection best illustrated by the automatic telephone exchange. You dial a number and the machine selects and connects just one of a million possible stations. It does not run over them all. It pays attention only to a class given by a first digit, then only to a subclass of this given by the second digit, and so on; and thus proceeds rapidly and almost unerringly to the selected station. It requires a few seconds to make the selection, although the process could be speeded up if increased speed were economically warranted. If necessary, it could be made extremely fast by substituting thermionic-tube switching for mechanical switching, so that the full selection could be made in one one-hundredth of a second. No one would wish to spend the money necessary to make this change in the telephone system, but the general idea is applicable elsewhere.

Take the prosaic problem of the great department store. Every time a charge sale is made, there are a number of things to be done. The inventory needs to be revised, the salesman needs to be given credit for the sale, the general accounts need an entry, and, most important, the customer needs to be charged. A central records device has been developed in which much of this work is done conveniently. The salesman places on a stand the customer's identification card, his own card, and the card taken from the article sold—all punched cards. When he pulls a lever, contacts are made through the holes, machinery at a central point makes the necessary computations and entries, and the proper receipt is printed for the salesman to pass to the customer.

But there may be ten thousand charge customers doing business with the store, and before the full operation can be completed someone has to select the right card and insert it at the central office. Now rapid selection can slide just the proper card into position in an instant or two, and return it afterward. Another difficulty occurs, however. Someone must read a total on the card, so that the machine can add its computed item to it. Conceivably the cards might be of the dry photography type I have described. Existing totals could then be read by photocell, and the new total entered by an electron beam.

The cards may be in miniature, so that they occupy little space. They must move quickly. They need not be transferred far, but merely into position so that the photocell and recorder can operate on them. Positional dots can enter the data. At the end of the month a machine can readily be made to read these and to print an ordinary bill. With tube selection, in which no mechanical parts are involved in the switches, little time need be occupied in bringing the correct card into use—a second should suffice for the entire operation. The whole record on the card may be made by magnetic dots on a steel sheet if desired, instead of dots to be observed optically, following the scheme by which Poulsen long ago put speech on a magnetic wire. This method has the advantage of simplicity and ease of erasure. By using photography, however one can arrange to project the record in enlarged form and at a distance by using the process common in television equipment.

One can consider rapid selection of this form, and distant projection for other purposes. To be able to key one sheet of a million before an operator in a second or two, with the possibility of then adding notes thereto, is suggestive in many ways. It might even be of use in libraries, but that is another story. At any rate, there are now some interesting combinations possible. One might, for example, speak to a microphone, in the manner described in connection with the speech controlled typewriter, and thus make his selections. It would certainly beat the usual file clerk.

6
The real heart of the matter of selection, however, goes deeper than a lag in the adoption of mechanisms by libraries, or a lack of development of devices for their use. Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by the artificiality of systems of indexing. When data of any sort are placed in storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found (when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass. It can be in only one place, unless duplicates are used; one has to have rules as to which path will locate it, and the rules are cumbersome. Having found one item, moreover, one has to emerge from the system and re-enter on a new path.

The human mind does not work that way. It operates by association. With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain. It has other characteristics, of course; trails that are not frequently followed are prone to fade, items are not fully permanent, memory is transitory. Yet the speed of action, the intricacy of trails, the detail of mental pictures, is awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature.

Man cannot hope fully to duplicate this mental process artificially, but he certainly ought to be able to learn from it. In minor ways he may even improve, for his records have relative permanency. The first idea, however, to be drawn from the analogy concerns selection. Selection by association, rather than indexing, may yet be mechanized. One cannot hope thus to equal the speed and flexibility with which the mind follows an associative trail, but it should be possible to beat the mind decisively in regard to the permanence and clarity of the items resurrected from storage.

Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, "memex" will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.

It consists of a desk, and while it can presumably be operated from a distance, it is primarily the piece of furniture at which he works. On the top are slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for convenient reading. There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and levers. Otherwise it looks like an ordinary desk.

In one end is the stored material. The matter of bulk is well taken care of by improved microfilm. Only a small part of the interior of the memex is devoted to storage, the rest to mechanism. Yet if the user inserted 5000 pages of material a day it would take him hundreds of years to fill the repository, so he can be profligate and enter material freely.

Most of the memex contents are purchased on microfilm ready for insertion. Books of all sorts, pictures, current periodicals, newspapers, are thus obtained and dropped into place. Business correspondence takes the same path. And there is provision for direct entry. On the top of the memex is a transparent platen. On this are placed longhand notes, photographs, memoranda, all sorts of things. When one is in place, the depression of a lever causes it to be photographed onto the next blank space in a section of the memex film, dry photography being employed.

There is, of course, provision for consultation of the record by the usual scheme of indexing. If the user wishes to consult a certain book, he taps its code on the keyboard, and the title page of the book promptly appears before him, projected onto one of his viewing positions. Frequently-used codes are mnemonic, so that he seldom consults his code book; but when he does, a single tap of a key projects it for his use. Moreover, he has supplemental levers. On deflecting one of these levers to the right he runs through the book before him, each page in turn being projected at a speed which just allows a recognizing glance at each. If he deflects it further to the right, he steps through the book 10 pages at a time; still further at 100 pages at a time. Deflection to the left gives him the same control backwards.

A special button transfers him immediately to the first page of the index. Any given book of his library can thus be called up and consulted with far greater facility than if it were taken from a shelf. As he has several projection positions, he can leave one item in position while he calls up another. He can add marginal notes and comments, taking advantage of one possible type of dry photography, and it could even be arranged so that he can do this by a stylus scheme, such as is now employed in the telautograph seen in railroad waiting rooms, just as though he had the physical page before him.

7
All this is conventional, except for the projection forward of present-day mechanisms and gadgetry. It affords an immediate step, however, to associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another. This is the essential feature of the memex. The process of tying two items together is the important thing.

When the user is building a trail, he names it, inserts the name in his code book, and taps it out on his keyboard. Before him are the two items to be joined, projected onto adjacent viewing positions. At the bottom of each there are a number of blank code spaces, and a pointer is set to indicate one of these on each item. The user taps a single key, and the items are permanently joined. In each code space appears the code word. Out of view, but also in the code space, is inserted a set of dots for photocell viewing; and on each item these dots by their positions designate the index number of the other item.

Thereafter, at any time, when one of these items is in view, the other can be instantly recalled merely by tapping a button below the corresponding code space. Moreover, when numerous items have been thus joined together to form a trail, they can be reviewed in turn, rapidly or slowly, by deflecting a lever like that used for turning the pages of a book. It is exactly as though the physical items had been gathered together from widely separated sources and bound together to form a new book. It is more than this, for any item can be joined into numerous trails.

The owner of the memex, let us say, is interested in the origin and properties of the bow and arrow. Specifically he is studying why the short Turkish bow was apparently superior to the English long bow in the skirmishes of the Crusades. He has dozens of possibly pertinent books and articles in his memex. First he runs through an encyclopedia, finds an interesting but sketchy article, leaves it projected. Next, in a history, he finds another pertinent item, and ties the two together. Thus he goes, building a trail of many items. Occasionally he inserts a comment of his own, either linking it into the main trail or joining it by a side trail to a particular item. When it becomes evident that the elastic properties of available materials had a great deal to do with the bow, he branches off on a side trail which takes him through textbooks on elasticity and tables of physical constants. He inserts a page of longhand analysis of his own. Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials available to him.


And his trails do not fade. Several years later, his talk with a friend turns to the queer ways in which a people resist innovations, even of vital interest. He has an example, in the fact that the outraged Europeans still failed to adopt the Turkish bow. In fact he has a trail on it. A touch brings up the code book. Tapping a few keys projects the head of the trail. A lever runs through it at will, stopping at interesting items, going off on side excursions. It is an interesting trail, pertinent to the discussion. So he sets a reproducer in action, photographs the whole trail out, and passes it to his friend for insertion in his own memex, there to be linked into the more general trail.

8
Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified. The lawyer has at his touch the associated opinions and decisions of his whole experience, and of the experience of friends and authorities. The patent attorney has on call the millions of issued patents, with familiar trails to every point of his client's interest. The physician, puzzled by a patient's reactions, strikes the trail established in studying an earlier similar case, and runs rapidly through analogous case histories, with side references to the classics for the pertinent anatomy and histology. The chemist, struggling with the synthesis of an organic compound, has all the chemical literature before him in his laboratory, with trails following the analogies of compounds, and side trails to their physical and chemical behavior.


The historian, with a vast chronological account of a people, parallels it with a skip trail which stops only on the salient items, and can follow at any time contemporary trails which lead him all over civilization at a particular epoch. There is a new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record. The inheritance from the master becomes, not only his additions to the world's record, but for his disciples the entire scaffolding by which they were erected.

Thus science may implement the ways in which man produces, stores, and consults the record of the race. It might be striking to outline the instrumentalities of the future more spectacularly, rather than to stick closely to methods and elements now known and undergoing rapid development, as has been done here. Technical difficulties of all sorts have been ignored, certainly, but also ignored are means as yet unknown which may come any day to accelerate technical progress as violently as did the advent of the thermionic tube. 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.

All our steps in creating or absorbing material of the record proceed through one of the senses—the tactile when we touch keys, the oral when we speak or listen, the visual when we read. Is it not possible that some day the path may be established more directly?

We know that when the eye sees, all the consequent information is transmitted to the brain by means of electrical vibrations in the channel of the optic nerve. This is an exact analogy with the electrical vibrations which occur in the cable of a television set: they convey the picture from the photocells which see it to the radio transmitter from which it is broadcast. We know further that if we can approach that cable with the proper instruments, we do not need to touch it; we can pick up those vibrations by electrical induction and thus discover and reproduce the scene which is being transmitted, just as a telephone wire may be tapped for its message.

The impulses which flow in the arm nerves of a typist convey to her fingers the translated information which reaches her eye or ear, in order that the fingers may be caused to strike the proper keys. Might not these currents be intercepted, either in the original form in which information is conveyed to the brain, or in the marvelously metamorphosed form in which they then proceed to the hand?


By bone conduction we already introduce sounds: into the nerve channels of the deaf in order that they may hear. Is it not possible that we may learn to introduce them without the present cumbersomeness of first transforming electrical vibrations to mechanical ones, which the human mechanism promptly transforms back to the electrical form? With a couple of electrodes on the skull the encephalograph now produces pen-and-ink traces which bear some relation to the electrical phenomena going on in the brain itself. True, the record is unintelligible, except as it points out certain gross misfunctioning of the cerebral mechanism; but who would now place bounds on where such a thing may lead?

In the outside world, all forms of intelligence whether of sound or sight, have been reduced to the form of varying currents in an electric circuit in order that they may be transmitted. Inside the human frame exactly the same sort of process occurs. Must we always transform to mechanical movements in order to proceed from one electrical phenomenon to another? It is a suggestive thought, but it hardly warrants prediction without losing touch with reality and immediateness.

Presumably man's spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems. He has built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His excursions 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.


The applications of science have built man a well-supplied house, and are teaching him to live healthily therein. They have enabled him to throw masses of people against one another with cruel weapons. They may yet allow him truly to encompass the great record and to grow in the wisdom of race experience. He may perish in conflict before he learns to wield that record for his true good. Yet, in the application of science to the needs and desires of man, it would seem to be a singularly unfortunate stage at which to terminate the process, or to lose hope as to the outcome.





正如我们所想的那样
"考虑一个未来的设备......个人在其中存储他所有的书籍、记录和通信，并且它是机械化的，因此可以以极快的速度和灵活性进行查询。它是对他的记忆的一种扩大的亲密的补充"。

作者：范尼瓦尔-布什

电报是通信技术的一个突破，范尼瓦尔-布什想象它能以前所未有的方式发展。(美联社)
1945年7月号
分享
作为科学研究和发展办公室的主任，范尼瓦尔-布什博士协调了大约六千名领先的美国科学家在将科学应用于战争方面的活动。在这篇重要的文章中，他提出了在战斗停止后对科学家的激励措施。他敦促科学工作者应该转向使我们令人困惑的知识库更容易获得的巨大任务。多年来，各种发明扩展了人类的体能，而不是心灵的力量。使拳头变大的绊脚锤，使眼睛变尖的显微镜，以及破坏和探测的引擎，都是现代科学的新成果，但不是最终结果。布什博士说，现在，如果得到适当的发展，这些工具就在眼前，将使人能够接触和掌握历代继承的知识。当我们的科学家从战争工作中走出来时，完善这些和平工具应该是他们的首要目标。就像爱默生1837年关于 "美国学者 "的著名演讲一样，布什博士的这篇论文呼吁在有思想的人和我们的知识总量之间建立一种新的关系。- 编者按


这不是一场科学家的战争；这是一场所有人都有份的战争。科学家们为了一个共同的事业，埋葬了他们过去的职业竞争，大大地分享并学到了很多东西。在有效的伙伴关系中工作是令人振奋的。现在，对许多人来说，这似乎已经接近尾声了。科学家们接下来要做什么？

对生物学家来说，特别是对医学科学家来说，不可能有什么犹豫，因为他们的战争几乎没有要求他们离开旧的道路。许多人确实能够在他们熟悉的和平时期的实验室里继续进行他们的战争研究。他们的目标仍然大致相同。

只有物理学家被甩得最远，他们离开了学术研究，转而制造奇怪的破坏性工具，他们不得不为他们意想不到的任务设计新方法。他们在使敌人退却的装置上尽了自己的责任，与我们盟国的物理学家共同努力。他们在自己的内心深处感受到了成就的悸动。他们一直是一个伟大团队的一部分。现在，随着和平的到来，人们不禁要问，他们将在哪里找到与他们的努力相称的目标。

1
人类对科学和他的研究带来的新工具的使用有什么持久的好处？首先，它们加强了人类对其物质环境的控制。它们改善了他的食物、衣服和住所；它们增加了他的安全感，使他部分地摆脱了赤裸裸的生存的束缚。它们使他对自己的生物过程有了更多的了解，从而使他逐步摆脱了疾病，延长了寿命。它们正在阐明他的生理和心理功能的相互作用，给人以改善心理健康的希望。

科学提供了个人之间最迅速的交流；它提供了思想的记录，并使人类能够操纵和摘录这些记录，从而使知识在一个种族而不是个人的生命中不断发展和延续。

有一个越来越大的研究山。但有越来越多的证据表明，随着专业化的扩展，我们今天正在陷入困境。调查人员被成千上万的其他工作者的发现和结论所震惊--他找不到时间来掌握这些结论，更不用说记住这些结论了。然而，为了取得进展，专业化变得越来越有必要，而在各学科之间搭桥的努力也相应地变得肤浅。

在专业方面，我们传递和审查研究成果的方法已经有几代人的历史了，到现在已经完全不能满足其目的了。如果能对撰写学术作品和阅读这些作品所花费的时间总量进行评估，那么这些时间的比例很可能是惊人的。那些自觉地试图通过仔细和持续的阅读来跟上当前思想的人，很可能会对一项旨在显示前一个月的努力可以随叫随到的检查感到畏惧。孟德尔的遗传学定律概念在一代人的时间里消失了，因为他的出版物没有到达少数有能力掌握和扩展它的人手中；这种灾难无疑正在我们周围重演，因为真正有意义的成就在大量无足轻重的事物中消失了。

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困难似乎并不在于我们鉴于当今利益的范围和种类而过度出版，而是在于出版的范围已经远远超出了我们目前真正利用记录的能力。人类经验的总结正在以惊人的速度扩大，而我们用来穿过随之而来的迷宫，找到暂时重要的项目的手段，与在方舟时代使用的手段相同。

但是有迹象表明，随着新的和强大的工具的使用，情况会发生变化。能够从物理意义上看到事物的光电管，能够记录所看到的甚至没有看到的东西的先进摄影术，能够在比蚊子振动翅膀更小的功率指导下控制强大力量的热电管，使人看到的事件如此短暂，以至于相比之下一微秒都是很长的时间，能够比任何人类操作员更可靠地执行相关动作序列的继电器组合，以及数千倍的速度，有很多机械辅助工具可以实现科学记录的转变。

两个世纪前，莱布尼茨发明了一台计算机，它体现了最近的键盘设备的大部分基本特征，但它当时无法投入使用。当时的经济状况对它不利：在大规模生产的时代之前，建造它所涉及的劳动超过了使用它所节省的劳动，因为它所能完成的一切可以通过充分使用铅笔和纸张来复制。此外，它还会经常出现故障，所以它不可能被依赖；因为在当时和以后很长一段时间，复杂和不可靠是同义词。

巴贝奇，即使在他的时代有非常慷慨的支持，也无法制造出他伟大的算术机。他的想法很好，但建造和维护成本太高了。如果一个法老得到了详细而明确的汽车设计，并且他完全理解了这些设计，那么他将耗费王国的资源来制造一辆汽车的数千个零件，而且这辆车在第一次去吉萨的路上就会坏掉。

现在，具有可互换部件的机器可以以非常经济的方式建造。尽管非常复杂，但它们的性能却很可靠。见证了简陋的打字机，或电影摄影机，或汽车。在彻底理解的情况下，电气触点已经不再粘连。请注意自动电话交换机，它有数十万个这样的触点，但却很可靠。一个金属的蜘蛛网，密封在一个薄薄的玻璃容器里，一根电线被加热到发出耀眼的光芒，简而言之，就是收音机的热离子管，是以亿为单位制造的，被扔在包装里，插在插座上--它还能工作！它的如丝的部件，被加热到发出耀眼的光芒。它那薄如蝉翼的部件，其建造过程中涉及的精确位置和排列方式，会让一个行会的工匠大师花费数月的时间；现在，它的建造费用为30美分。世界已经进入了一个具有高度可靠性的廉价复杂设备的时代；而且必然会有一些成果。

2
一个记录如果要对科学有用，就必须不断扩展，必须储存，最重要的是必须被查阅。今天，我们通过书写和摄影来进行记录，然后是印刷；但我们也在胶片、蜡盘和磁力线上进行记录。即使完全新的记录程序没有出现，目前的这些程序也肯定在修改和扩展过程中。

当然，摄影的进步是不会停止的。更快的材料和镜头，更多的自动相机，更精细的敏感化合物，以允许扩展微型相机的想法，都是即将出现的。让我们把这一趋势预测到一个合乎逻辑的、甚至是不可避免的结果。未来的照相机猎手在他的额头上戴着一个比核桃大一点的肿块。它可以拍摄3毫米见方的照片，然后进行投影或放大，这毕竟只涉及到比现在的实践多10倍的因素。镜头的焦距是通用的，可以精确到单眼所能容纳的任何距离，只因为它的焦距很短。核桃上有一个内置的光电池，就像我们现在至少有一台相机上的光电池一样，它可以自动调整大范围照明的曝光。核桃中的胶片可供一百次曝光，当插入胶片夹时，用于操作快门和移动胶片的弹簧就会一次性上紧。它产生的结果是全彩色的。它很可能是立体的，用两只间隔的玻璃眼睛来记录，因为立体技术的显著改进就在眼前。

触发快门的绳索可以伸到一个人的袖子里，他的手指很容易触及。迅速按一下，就能拍到照片。在一副普通的眼镜上，在一个镜片的顶部附近有一个由细线组成的正方形，它不在普通视觉的范围内。当一个物体出现在这个方格中时，它就会被排成一排，以便拍照。当未来的科学家在实验室或野外活动时，每当他看到值得记录的东西时，他就会按下快门，它就会出现，甚至没有声音的点击。这一切都很奇妙吗？它唯一奇妙的地方在于，使用它可以拍出尽可能多的照片。

会有干式摄影吗？它已经以两种形式出现了。当布雷迪制作他的内战照片时，在曝光时印版必须是湿的。现在，它必须在冲洗过程中保持湿润。在未来，也许它根本就不需要被弄湿。很久以前就有了用重氮染料浸渍的胶片，不需要显影就能形成画面，所以相机一操作，画面就已经出现了。在氨气中的曝光会破坏未曝光的染料，然后就可以把照片拿到光线下检查。这个过程现在很慢，但有人可以加快它的速度，而且它没有像现在让摄影研究人员忙于工作的粮食困难。通常情况下，能够拍下相机并立即查看照片是很有利的。

现在使用的另一个过程也很慢，而且或多或少有些笨拙。五十年来，人们一直在使用浸渍纸，这种纸在电接触的地方都会变黑，原因是纸中的碘化合物产生了化学变化。它们被用来做记录，因为指针在上面移动会留下一个痕迹。如果在指针移动时，其上的电势是变化的，那么线就会根据电势的变化而变得明亮或黑暗。

这个方案现在被用于传真传输。指针在纸上一个接一个地画出一组紧密间隔的线条。当它移动时，它的电位根据从远方站点通过电线收到的变化电流而变化，这些变化是由一个类似于扫描图片的光电管产生的。在每一个瞬间，正在绘制的线条的暗度与光电管观察的图片上的点的暗度相等。因此，当整个图片被覆盖时，在接收端出现一个复制品。

通过这种方式，光电管可以很好地逐行查看一个场景本身，就像查看一张场景的照片一样。这整个装置构成了一台照相机，还有一个额外的功能，如果需要的话可以省去，那就是在远处拍照。它很慢，照片的细节也很差。不过，它确实提供了另一个干式摄影的过程，在这个过程中，照片一经拍摄就会完成。

一个勇敢的人将预言这样一个过程将永远是笨拙的、缓慢的、细节上有缺陷的。今天的电视设备一秒钟可以传送16张相当好的照片，它与上述过程只涉及两个基本的区别。其一，记录是由一束移动的电子而不是一个移动的指针来完成的，原因是电子束确实可以非常迅速地扫过画面。另一个区别仅仅涉及到使用一个屏幕，当电子击中时它会瞬间发光，而不是使用经过化学处理的纸张或胶片，因为后者会永久地改变。这种速度在电视中是必要的，因为运动图像而不是静态图像是目标。

用经过化学处理的胶片代替发光的屏幕，让仪器只传送一张图片，而不是连续的图片，这样就可以形成一个快速的干式摄影机。经过处理的胶片在行动上需要比现在的例子快得多，但它也许可以做到。更严重的反对意见是，这个方案将涉及到把胶片放在真空室里，因为电子束只有在这种稀薄的环境中才会有正常表现。这个困难可以通过让电子束在一个隔板的一侧发挥作用，并将薄膜压在另一侧来避免，如果这个隔板能让电子垂直于其表面通过，并防止它们向侧面扩散。这样的隔板，以粗糙的形式，当然可以建造，而且它们几乎不会阻碍一般的发展。

像干式摄影一样，显微摄影仍有很长的路要走。缩小记录的尺寸，并通过投影而不是直接检查的基本方案，具有不容忽视的可能性。光学投影和照相术的结合已经在用于学术目的的缩微胶片中产生了一些结果，其潜力是非常值得期待的。今天，对于缩微胶卷，可以采用20的线性系数进行缩减，当材料被重新放大进行检查时，仍然可以产生完全的清晰度。限制是由胶片的颗粒度、光学系统的卓越性和所使用的光源的效率决定的。所有这些都在迅速改善。

假设一个线性比率为100，供将来使用。考虑到与纸一样厚度的胶片，尽管更薄的胶片肯定也是可用的。即使在这些条件下，普通书本上的大部分记录和其微缩胶片的复制品之间也会有10,000的系数。大英百科全书》可以缩小到一个火柴盒的体积。一个拥有一百万册图书的图书馆可以被压缩到一张桌子的一端。如果人类自发明活字印刷术以来，以杂志、报纸、书籍、小册子、广告短文、信件的形式产生了一个总的记录，其体积相当于10亿本书，那么整个事件的集合和压缩，可以用一辆移动货车拖走。当然，仅仅是压缩是不够的；人们不仅需要制作和储存记录，还需要能够查阅，而这方面的问题是后来才有的。即使是现代的大图书馆，一般也不会被查阅；它只是被少数人蚕食了。

然而，当涉及到成本时，压缩是很重要的。制作大英百科全书缩微胶卷的材料只需花费五分钱，而且只需花一分钱就可以邮寄到任何地方。印刷一百万份的成本是多少？印制一张报纸的大版，只需花费一小部分的钱。大英百科全书的全部资料以缩微胶卷的形式出现在一张8.5x11英寸的纸上。一旦有了它，用未来的照相复制方法，大量的复制品可能会以超出材料成本的1美分一张的价格制作出来。原始副本的准备？这就引出了这个问题的下一个方面。

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为了做记录，我们现在要用铅笔或打字机进行记录。然后是消化和修正的过程，接着是复杂的排版、印刷和分发过程。考虑到程序的第一阶段，未来的作者是否会停止用手或打字机写作而直接与记录对话？他这样做是间接的，通过与速记员或蜡筒交谈；但如果他想让他的谈话直接产生一个打字的记录，这些要素都是存在的。他所需要做的就是利用现有的机制并改变他的语言。

在最近的一次世界博览会上，展出了一台名为Voder的机器。一个女孩抚摸着它的按键，它发出了可识别的语音。在任何时候都没有人的声带进入这个程序；按键只是将一些电子产生的振动结合起来，并将这些振动传递给一个大喇叭。在贝尔实验室里，有一台与之相反的机器，叫做Vocoder。扬声器被一个麦克风所取代，它可以接收声音。对着它说话，相应的按键就会移动。这可能是假设的系统的一个要素。

另一个因素是在速记仪中发现的，这是一种通常在公共会议上遇到的有点令人不安的设备。一个女孩无精打采地抚摸着键盘，环视整个房间，有时还用一种令人不安的目光看着发言者。从中出现了一个打字条，用语音简化的语言记录了发言者应该说的话。后来，这个条子被重新打成普通语言，因为在它的雏形中，只有初学的人才能理解。将这两个要素结合起来，让 Vocoder 运行速记机，结果就是一台在说话时打字的机器。

我们目前的语言并不特别适合于这种机械化，这是事实。奇怪的是，通用语言的发明者们没有抓住生产一种更适合传输和记录语言的技术的想法。机械化可能会迫使这个问题出现，特别是在科学领域；届时，科学术语对普通人来说将变得更加难以理解。

人们现在可以想象一个未来的研究人员在他的实验室里。他的手是自由的，而且他没有被固定住。当他走动和观察时，他会拍照和评论。时间被自动记录下来，把这两个记录联系在一起。如果他进入现场，他可以通过无线电与他的记录器连接。当他在晚上思考他的笔记时，他又把他的意见讲到记录里。他的打字记录和他的照片都可以是微型的，这样他就可以把它们投射出来进行检查。

然而，在收集数据和观察，从现有记录中提取平行材料，以及最后将新材料插入共同记录的总体之间，需要发生很多事情。对于成熟的思想，没有任何机械性的替代。但是，创造性思维和本质上的重复性思维是非常不同的东西。对于后者，有而且可能有强大的机械辅助工具。

增加一列数字是一个重复性的思维过程，它在很久以前就被适当地归入了机器。诚然，机器有时是由键盘控制的，在阅读数字和按下相应的键时，会有某种思维进入，但即使这样也是可以避免的。已经有机器可以通过光电管读取打出的数字，然后按下相应的按键；这些机器是光电管扫描字体的组合，电路对随之而来的变化进行分类，继电器电路将结果解释为螺线管的动作，以拉下按键。

所有这些复杂的东西都是需要的，因为我们已经学会了写数字的笨拙方式。如果我们仅仅通过卡片上的一组点的配置来记录它们的位置，那么自动阅读机制就会变得相对简单。事实上，如果这些点是孔，我们就有了很久以前由Hollorith为人口普查目的而生产的打孔卡片机，现在整个企业都在使用。如果没有这些机器，某些类型的复杂业务几乎无法运作。

加法只是一种操作。进行算术计算还涉及到减法、乘法和除法，此外还有一些临时存储结果的方法，从存储中取出来进一步操作，并通过打印记录最终结果。用于这些目的的机器现在有两种类型：用于会计和类似工作的键盘机，在插入数据时由人工控制，就操作顺序而言，通常是自动控制；以及打孔卡片机，在这种机器中，单独的操作通常被委托给一系列机器，然后卡片从一台转移到另一台。这两种形式都非常有用；但就复杂的计算而言，两者都还处于萌芽阶段。

在物理学家发现有必要对宇宙射线进行计数后不久，快速电子计数出现了。为了他们自己的目的，物理学家们迅速建造了热离子管设备，能够以每秒10万次的速度计算电脉冲。未来的先进算术机将是电子性质的，它们将以目前100倍或更高的速度运行。

此外，它们的功能将远远超过目前的商业机器，因此，它们可以很容易地适用于各种操作。它们将由控制卡或薄膜控制，它们将选择自己的数据，并按照这样插入的指令进行操作，它们将以极高的速度进行复杂的算术计算，它们将以这样的形式记录结果，以便随时可以分发或以后进一步操作。这种机器将有巨大的胃口。其中一台机器将从一屋子带着简单键盘打孔器的女孩那里接受指令和数据，并且每隔几分钟就会送出几张计算结果。在数百万人做复杂事情的详细事务中，总会有很多事情需要计算。

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然而，重复性的思维过程并不局限于算术和统计的问题。事实上，每当人们按照既定的逻辑过程组合和记录事实时，思维的创造性方面只涉及到数据的选择和要采用的过程，此后的操作是重复性的，因此是适合交给机器处理的事情。沿着这些思路，在算术的范围之外，没有做那么多可能做的事情，主要是由于经济状况的原因。商业的需求和广泛的市场显然在等待，保证了一旦生产方法足够先进，大规模生产的算术机器就会出现。

对于用于高级分析的机器来说，这种情况并不存在；因为过去和现在都没有广泛的市场；操纵数据的高级方法的用户只是人口中的一小部分。然而，也有用于解决微分方程的机器，以及用于解决函数和积分方程的机器。有许多特殊的机器，如预测潮汐的谐波合成器。还会有更多的机器，当然首先出现在科学家的手中，而且数量很少。

如果科学推理仅限于算术的逻辑过程，我们对物理世界的理解就不会有什么进展。人们不妨尝试完全通过使用概率数学来掌握扑克游戏。算盘，用平行线串起的珠子，比世界上其他地方早了很多个世纪，引导阿拉伯人掌握了位置数和零的概念；它是一个有用的工具--有用到它仍然存在。

从算盘到现代键盘会计机，这是一个很大的差距。它与未来的算术机将是一个同等的步骤。但即使是这种新机器也不能把科学家带到他需要去的地方。如果高等数学的使用者要解放他们的大脑，而不是按照既定的规则进行重复的详细转换，就必须从繁重的详细操作中得到缓解。数学家不是一个能轻易操纵数字的人；他往往不能。他甚至不是一个能够通过使用微积分轻易地进行方程转换的人。他主要是一个在高层次上熟练使用符号逻辑的人，特别是在选择他所采用的操作过程时，他是一个有直觉判断的人。

其他一切他都应该能够交给他的机制，就像他把汽车的推进交给引擎盖下的复杂机制一样自信。只有这样，数学才能切实有效地将不断增长的原子学知识用于解决化学、冶金和生物学的高级问题。由于这个原因，仍然会有更多的机器来为科学家处理高级数学。其中一些机器将足够怪异，以适应目前文明的人工制品中最挑剔的鉴赏家。

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然而，科学家并不是唯一通过使用逻辑过程来操纵数据和研究他周围的世界的人，尽管他有时会通过接纳任何变得有逻辑的人而保持这种外表，就像英国劳工领袖被提升为骑士一样。每当采用逻辑思维过程时，也就是说，每当思维在一段时间内沿着一个公认的沟槽运行时，机器就有机会了。形式上的逻辑曾经是教师在尝试学生的灵魂时手中的一个敏锐的工具。仅仅通过巧妙地使用继电器电路，就可以很容易地建造一台机器，它将按照形式逻辑来操作前提。把一组前提放进这样的设备里，然后转动曲柄，它就会很容易地传出一个又一个结论，所有这些都符合逻辑规律，而且不会比键盘上的加法器更容易滑动。

逻辑学可能会变得非常困难，毫无疑问，在其使用中产生更多的保证是好的。用于高级分析的机器通常是方程解算器。方程转换机的想法开始出现，它将按照严格的、相当先进的逻辑，重新排列方程所表达的关系。数学家们用极其粗糙的方式来表达他们的关系，这抑制了进步。他们采用的符号学就像托普西一样成长，没有什么一致性；在这个最具逻辑性的领域，这是一个奇怪的事实。

一种新的符号学，可能是位置性的，显然必须在将数学转换简化为机器过程之前。然后，在数学家的严格逻辑之外，就是日常事务中的逻辑应用。有一天，我们可能会像现在在收银机上输入销售额一样，在机器上点击论证。但逻辑的机器不会像收银机，即使是精简的模型。

对思想的操纵和将其插入记录的工作就到此为止。到目前为止，我们似乎比以前更糟了，因为我们可以大大扩展记录；然而，即使在目前的规模下，我们也很难查阅它。这是个更大的问题，不仅仅是为科学研究的目的提取数据；它涉及到人类通过继承获得的知识而获利的整个过程。使用的主要行动是选择，而在这里我们确实是在停顿。可能有数以百万计的优秀思想，以及它们所依据的经验说明，都被包裹在可接受的建筑形式的石墙内；但如果学者通过勤奋的搜索每周只能得到一个，他的综合就不可能跟上当前的形势。


从这个广义上讲，选择是橱柜制造者手中的一把石锛。然而，从狭义上说，在其他领域，已经有一些关于选拔的机械性工作了。一家工厂的人事官员把一叠几千张员工的卡片扔进选拔机，按照既定的惯例设定一个代码，在很短的时间内产生一份所有住在特伦顿并懂西班牙语的员工名单。即使是这样的设备也太慢了，例如，当它涉及到将一组指纹与档案中的500万个指纹之一进行匹配时。这类甄选设备很快就会从目前每分钟几百个数据的审查速度上得到加快。通过使用光电管和微缩胶片，它们将以每秒一千次的速度调查项目，并将打印出所选项目的副本。

然而，这个过程只是简单的选择：它通过轮流检查一大批项目中的每一个，并挑选出那些具有某些特定特征的项目。还有一种选择的形式，最好用自动电话交换机来说明。你拨一个号码，机器就会从一百万个可能的电台中选择并连接一个。它并不对所有的电台进行检查。它只注意第一个数字所代表的类别，然后只注意第二个数字所代表的子类别，以此类推；这样就能迅速地、几乎无误地进入所选择的电台。它需要几秒钟的时间来进行选择，尽管如果在经济上需要提高速度的话，这个过程还可以加快。如果有必要，可以通过用热电管开关代替机械开关来使它变得非常快，这样就可以在百分之一秒的时间内完成全部选择。没有人愿意花钱在电话系统中进行这种改变，但一般的想法也适用于其他地方。

以大型百货公司的普通问题为例。每次进行收费销售时，都有许多事情要做。库存需要修改，销售员需要得到销售的奖励，一般的账目需要记录，最重要的是，需要向客户收费。一种中央记录设备已经被开发出来，其中大部分工作都可以方便地完成。售货员将顾客的身份证、他自己的卡和从所售物品上取下的卡放在一个支架上，这些都是打孔的卡。当他拉动杠杆时，通过这些孔进行接触，在一个中心点的机器进行必要的计算和记录，并打印出适当的收据，由销售员转交给顾客。

但是，可能有一万名收费顾客在商店里做生意，在整个操作完成之前，必须有人选择正确的卡片并将其插入中央办公室。现在，快速选择可以在一两分钟内将合适的卡片滑入位置，之后再将其归还。然而，另一个困难出现了。必须有人读出卡片上的总数，以便机器能够将其计算的项目添加到卡片上。可以想象，这些卡片可能是我所描述的干式摄影类型。现有的总数可以由光电管读取，而新的总数则由电子束输入。

这些卡片可以是微型的，因此它们占用的空间很小。它们必须快速移动。它们不需要被转移到很远的地方，而仅仅是进入位置，以便光电管和记录器能够对它们进行操作。定位点可以输入数据。在月末，一台机器可以很容易地读取这些数据并打印出一份普通的账单。有了管式选择，在开关中不涉及任何机械部件，在将正确的卡片投入使用时不需要占用多少时间--一秒钟就足以完成整个操作。如果需要的话，卡上的全部记录可以由钢板上的磁点来完成，而不是由光学观察的磁点来完成，就像Poulsen很久以前把语音放在磁力线上的方案那样。这种方法的优点是简单和容易擦除。然而，通过使用摄影，人们可以安排使用电视设备中常见的过程，将记录放大并在远处投射。

人们可以考虑快速选择这种形式，并为其他目的进行远距离投影。能够在一两秒钟内将一百万张唱片的钥匙放在操作者面前，然后有可能在上面添加注释，这在很多方面都是有意义的。它甚至可以用于图书馆，但这是另一个故事。无论如何，现在有一些有趣的组合是可能的。例如，人们可以按照语音控制打字机的方式，对着麦克风说话，从而进行选择。这肯定会胜过通常的文件管理员。

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然而，选择问题的真正核心，比图书馆采用机制的滞后，或缺乏使用机制的设备的发展更深。我们在获取记录方面的无能在很大程度上是由索引系统的人为性造成的。当任何类型的数据被放置在仓库中时，它们都是按字母或数字归档的，而信息的查找（如果有的话）是通过从一个子类追踪到另一个子类。它只能在一个地方，除非使用重复的东西；人们必须有规则来确定哪条路径能找到它，而且规则很繁琐。此外，在找到一个项目后，人们必须从系统中走出来，在新的路径上重新进入。

人类的头脑不是这样工作的。它通过联想来运作。在掌握了一个项目之后，它就会根据大脑细胞携带的一些错综复杂的线索，立即捕捉到由思想的关联所暗示的下一个项目。当然，它还有其他特点；不经常跟踪的线索容易消逝，项目不是完全永久的，记忆是短暂的。然而，行动的速度、轨迹的错综复杂、心理图画的细节，都令人敬畏，超越了自然界的其他一切。

人类不可能完全希望以人工方式复制这种心理过程，但他当然应该能够从中学习。在小的方面，他甚至可以改进，因为他的记录具有相对的持久性。然而，从这个类比中得出的第一个想法涉及选择。通过联想而不是索引进行选择，可能会被机械化。我们不能指望这样就能与大脑遵循联想线索的速度和灵活性相提并论，但在从存储中复活的项目的持久性和清晰性方面，应该有可能决定性地击败大脑。

考虑一下未来供个人使用的设备，它是一种机械化的私人文件和图书馆。它需要一个名字，随便取一个，"memex "就可以了。备忘录是一种设备，个人在其中存储他的所有书籍、记录和通信，并且它是机械化的，因此可以以极快的速度和灵活性进行查阅。它是对他的记忆的一种扩大的亲密的补充。

它由一张桌子组成，虽然它可以从远处操作，但它主要是他工作的家具。顶部是倾斜的半透明屏幕，材料可以投射在上面，方便阅读。有一个键盘，还有几组按钮和杆子。除此之外，它看起来像一张普通的桌子。

一端是储存的材料。改进后的缩微胶片很好地解决了体积问题。memex的内部只有一小部分用于存储，其余的用于机制。然而，如果用户每天插入5000页的材料，他将需要几百年的时间来填充存储库，所以他可以挥霍无度，自由输入材料。

大部分的备忘录内容都是在微缩胶片上购买的，随时可以插入。各种书籍、图片、当前的期刊、报纸，都是这样获得的，并投放到地方。商业信函也采取同样的方式。此外，还有直接输入的规定。在备忘录的顶部是一个透明的压板。在这上面放置了手写笔记、照片、备忘录和各种东西。当一个人就位时，一个杠杆的压下会导致它被拍到memex胶片的一个部分的下一个空白处，干式摄影被采用。

当然，也有规定通过通常的索引计划对记录进行查询。如果用户想查阅某本书，他在键盘上敲击其代码，书的标题页就会迅速出现在他面前，投射到他的一个观察位置。经常使用的代码是记忆性的，所以他很少查阅他的代码书；但当他需要时，只需轻敲一个键就能将其投射出来供他使用。此外，他还有补充性的杠杆。当他把其中一个杠杆向右偏转时，他就会翻阅他面前的书，每一页都会以一种速度投射出来，只允许他认认真真地看一眼。如果他进一步向右偏转，他就会每次翻阅10页书；再进一步，每次翻阅100页。向左偏转，他可以向后进行同样的控制。

一个特殊的按钮让他立即转到索引的第一页。这样，他的图书馆中的任何一本书都可以被调用和查阅，比从书架上取书要方便得多。由于他有几个投影位置，他可以在调用另一个项目时将其留在位置上。他可以利用一种可能的干式摄影技术，添加边注和评论，甚至可以安排他通过手写笔方案来做这件事，比如现在在铁路候车室看到的毛笔字，就像他面前有实体页一样。

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所有这些都是传统的，除了对现今的机制和设备的预测。然而，它为关联性索引提供了一个直接的步骤，其基本理念是提供一个条款，使任何项目可以随意选择，并立即自动选择另一个。这就是备忘录的基本特征。将两个项目联系在一起的过程是很重要的事情。

当用户建立一个线索时，他给它命名，在他的代码簿中插入这个名字，并在键盘上敲出它。在他面前的是要连接的两个项目，投影在相邻的观察位置上。在每个项目的底部都有一些空白的代码空间，一个指针被设置为指示每个项目上的其中一个。用户点击一个键，这些项目就被永久地连接起来。在每个代码空间里都出现了代码词。在看不见的地方，但也在代码空间中，插入了一组点，供光电管查看；在每个项目上，这些点的位置指定了另一个项目的索引号。

此后，在任何时候，当这些项目中的一个被看到时，只需点击相应代码空间下面的一个按钮，就可以立即调用另一个。此外，当许多项目以这种方式连接在一起形成一条线索时，可以通过偏转一个类似于翻书用的杠杆，快速或缓慢地依次回顾这些项目。这完全就像物理项目从相距甚远的来源收集到一起并装订成一本新书一样。它不止于此，因为任何物品都可以被连接成无数条线索。

比方说，回忆录的主人对弓箭的起源和特性感兴趣。具体来说，他正在研究为什么土耳其短弓在十字军东征的小规模战斗中明显优于英国长弓。他的备忘录里有几十本可能相关的书籍和文章。首先，他翻阅了一本百科全书，发现了一篇有趣但简略的文章，就把它留了下来。接下来，他在一本历史书中发现了另一个相关的项目，并将这两个项目联系起来。就这样，他建立了一个由许多项目组成的线索。偶尔他也会插入自己的评论，要么把它连接到主要的线索中，要么通过侧面的线索把它连接到一个特定的项目。当发现现有材料的弹性特性与这把弓有很大关系时，他就在一条侧边小道上走，这条小道把他带到了关于弹性的教科书和物理常数表。他插入了一页他自己的手写分析。这样，他就在他所能得到的材料的迷宫中建立了一条他感兴趣的线索。


而他的足迹并没有褪色。几年后，他与一位朋友的谈话转向了一个民族抵制创新的奇怪方式，即使是重要的利益。他有一个例子，就是被激怒的欧洲人仍然没有采用土耳其弓。事实上，他有一个关于它的线索。触摸一下就会出现密码本。敲击几个键就会出现线索的头。一根杠杆可以随意穿过它，在有趣的项目上停下来，去做侧面的游览。这是一条有趣的线索，与我们的讨论息息相关。所以他设置了一个复制器，把整个线索拍了下来，并把它交给他的朋友，让他插入自己的记忆库中，在那里与更多的线索联系起来。

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全新形式的百科全书将会出现，它是现成的，有网状的联想线索贯穿其中，随时可以放入记忆库并在那里放大。律师可以触及他全部经验的相关意见和决定，以及朋友和权威的经验。专利律师可以随时调用数以百万计的已颁发的专利，对客户的每一个兴趣点都有熟悉的跟踪。医生在对病人的反应感到困惑时，会找到研究早期类似病例时建立的线索，并迅速查阅类似的病例历史，同时参考经典的相关解剖学和组织学。化学家在努力合成一种有机化合物时，在他的实验室里有所有的化学文献，沿着化合物的类比线索，以及它们的物理和化学行为的侧面线索。


历史学家，对一个民族有一个庞大的按时间顺序的描述，与之平行的是一个跳过的小径，只停留在突出的项目上，并且可以在任何时候跟随当代的小径，在一个特定的时代带领他走遍文明。现在出现了一种新的线索开拓者的职业，那些在大量的共同记录中建立有用线索的任务中找到乐趣的人。大师的遗产不仅成为他对世界记录的补充，而且对他的弟子来说，还成为他们赖以建立的整个脚手架。

因此，科学可以实现人类生产、储存和查阅种族记录的方式。更加引人注目的是勾勒出未来的工具，而不是像这里所做的那样，紧紧抓住现在已知的和正在迅速发展的方法和要素。当然，各种技术上的困难都被忽略了，但同时也忽略了一些尚不为人知的手段，这些手段可能随时会像热电管的出现一样，猛烈地加速技术进步。为了使画面不至于太过平凡，因为拘泥于现今的模式，不妨提及这样一种可能性，这不是预言，而只是建议，因为基于已知的扩展的预言是有实质内容的，而基于未知的预言只是一种双重的猜测。

我们创造或吸收记录材料的所有步骤都是通过一种感官进行的--当我们触摸钥匙时是触觉，当我们说话或听时是口述，当我们阅读时是视觉。难道没有可能在某一天更直接地确立这一路径吗？

我们知道，当眼睛看到时，所有随之而来的信息都是通过视神经通道中的电振动传递给大脑的。这与电视机电缆中发生的电振动完全相似：它们将画面从看到它的光电池传递到播放它的无线电发射器中。我们还知道，如果我们能用适当的工具接近那条电缆，我们就不需要触摸它；我们可以通过电感应来接收这些振动，从而发现并重现正在传输的场景，就像电话线可以被窃听到它的信息。

流动在打字员手臂神经中的脉冲将到达她眼睛或耳朵的翻译信息传递给她的手指，以便使手指能够敲击适当的键。难道这些电流不能被拦截吗，要么以信息传递到大脑的原始形式，要么以它们随后传到手上的奇妙的变形形式？


通过骨传导，我们已经将声音引入聋人的神经通道，以便他们能够听到。我们是否有可能学会引入声音，而不像现在这样麻烦，先将电振动转化为机械振动，而人类的机制又会立即将其转化为电的形式？现在，通过在头骨上的几个电极，脑图仪可以产生笔墨痕迹，这些痕迹与大脑中的电现象本身有一定的关系。诚然，这些记录是无法理解的，除了它指出了大脑机制的某些严重错误功能；但现在谁会对这种东西可能导致的结果设限呢？

在外部世界，所有形式的智能，无论是声音还是视觉，都被简化为电路中不同的电流形式，以便它们可以被传输。在人类的框架内，也发生了同样的过程。难道我们必须总是转变为机械运动，以便从一个电现象进行到另一个电现象？这是一个暗示性的想法，但它几乎没有理由在不失去现实和直接性的情况下进行预测。

如果人类能够更好地回顾自己不光彩的过去，更完整、更客观地分析自己目前的问题，那么人类的精神应该得到升华。他已经建立了一个如此复杂的文明，如果他要把他的实验推向合理的结论，而不仅仅是由于过度消耗他有限的记忆力而在途中陷入困境，他需要更充分地将他的记录机械化。如果他能重新获得忘记他不需要立即掌握的各种东西的特权，并在某种程度上保证在证明它们重要时能再次找到它们，那么他的旅行就会更加愉快。


科学的应用已经为人类建造了一个供应充足的房子，并且正在教他在其中健康地生活。它们使他能够用残酷的武器将大量的人相互攻击。它们可能还能让他真正囊括伟大的记录，在种族经验的智慧中成长。在他学会为自己的真正利益挥舞这一记录之前，他可能会在冲突中丧生。然而，在将科学应用于人类的需求和欲望方面，终止这一进程或对结果失去希望似乎是一个非常不幸的阶段。