VANNEVAR BUSH: BIOGRAPHY, CONTRIBUTIONS AND WORKS - BIOGRAPHIES - 2025

Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) was an American-born engineer with a very important role in computing. Among its milestones is the creation of the Rockefeller differential analyzer, which played a very important role during World War II.

In addition, Bush raised the idea of ​​the memex, which became the first experience of what would later become what we know today as the Internet. The engineer was a key factor in how people's relationship with computers will change radically.

Source: This portrait is credited to "OEM Defense", the Office for Emergency Management (part of the United States Federal Government) during World War II, via Wikimedia Commons.

He died 15 years before the official global computer network (WWW) began to be developed, but his influence on this development does not seem to be in dispute. Bush wrote in 1945 about a way to archive and search documents, linked by an interface thanks to different associations.

Its influence has also been recognized in the work of the American Douglas Carl Engelbart, who was in charge of inventing the mouse that was used to interact with computers. Additionally, Theodore Holm Nelson popularized words like hypertext and hypermedia, all thanks to Bush's previous work.

One of the most interesting characteristics of his work is that he was not trained in the computer area and that his inventions were focused on replicating characteristics of people. Bush wanted his machines to solve things using a bit of human logic when thinking, behaving and trying to solve their problems.

During his more than 60 years of professional career he held different positions and roles. He worked as an engineer, teacher, stood out as an inventor and was also the author of several books.

He was placed at the command of seven different presidents in the United States. He was very close to President Roosevelt. whom he convinced to use technology in warfare.

Biography

Early years

Vannevar Bush was born in the late 19th century, on March 11, 1890, in Massachusetts. He was better known as Van Bush because, by his own account, most people found it very difficult to pronounce his name.

He was the son of Richard Perry Bush and Emma Linwood Paine Bush. The couple had two daughters apart from Vannevar. Bush's father served at one stage of his life as a minister.

During his childhood Vannevar was characterized by spending a lot of time ill. In school he showed great ability for mathematics. When he graduated, he enrolled at Tufts University to train as an engineer thanks to a scholarship that was able to pay half of his expenses.

In his university stage, he first served as a tutor in the mathematics department, which allowed him to cover the rest of his expenses.

Education

Bush graduated from college and completed a master's degree in mathematics in 1913. That same year he got his first job as a test man at the General Electric Company. He made just over $ 11 a week, but it didn't last long as he was laid off along with other employees after a fire.

The job fiasco allowed him to continue his training and he completed a doctorate in electrical engineering in less than a year, at which time he also married. He then began teaching as an associate professor.

First steps

Bush stood out from the start for being innovative. He developed different machines and also dedicated himself to business, tasks that allowed him to have a good economic position.

His role within the university was also gaining importance. He became dean and vice president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, until he was called to lead the Carnegie Institution in Washington. There he began to have a great influence on a political level.

By 1940 Bush was in charge of forming the committee for the investigation in favor of the defense of the nation.

Contributions and works

Bush's importance to science in the United States varied widely. He began working focused on the electrical part and ended up being fundamental for the development of electronic devices and in the evolution of computers.

By the year of his death, in 1974, technology and computers were already present in almost every aspect of the lives of American citizens.

Creations

During the 20s and 30s of the 20th century, Bush helped improve America's electrical system and developed computers that made it possible to fix the errors that caused long-distance connections.

His work focused on the construction of analog computers that were later used in other areas of engineering, although they lost relevance when the Second World War began.

The most important machine he created during those years was the Rockefeller differential analyzer. It was basically a calculator that at first focused on solving problems at the electrical level, but later it was a fundamental piece of the United States Navy. It was used to analyze everything related to ballistics.

Calculations that could take a day manually, with the differential analyzer used to take less than an hour.

He founded the Raytheon company in 1922, whose goal was to create different electronic elements. He registered almost 50 patents throughout his career, which makes his work as an inventor very clear.

Role in OSRD

Much of the importance of Bush is due to the bond he developed with the US government. Thanks to the scientist, it became natural for the state to finance different advances and studies in the area of ​​science for its benefit at the military level.

This joint work allowed the military institutions in the United States to begin to have better equipment, since they had not evolved in this regard and were behind the machinery of other countries, such as Germany.

During this time, the first steps were taken for the creation of radars, night vision goggles, oxygen masks and even the design of different types of weapons and new explosives.

Over the years and due to the success of scientific investment for military purposes, President Roosevelt decreed the creation of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD for its acronym in English). Bush was in command of this body, which was also given the development of the medical area.

He had over 30 thousand workers under his command and was responsible for hundreds of weapons and military equipment. In a way the OSRD was the forerunner of the CIA.

Atomic bomb

One of the weapons designed thanks to the OSRD was the atomic bomb. Bush was in charge of forming the groups responsible for studying the possibility of creating this weapon. At first they told him it was not possible, but Bush insisted on the possibility when calling another group of scientists.

Thus, Vannevar Bush was the one who recommended to President Roosevelt that he develop the atomic bomb. One of Bush's main concerns was that the Germans succeed in creating this weapon before they do.

This work allowed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 that killed more than two hundred thousand people. To date, no more nuclear attacks have occurred in the world.

Memex

Bush is also well remembered for the publication of an article in 1945 entitled How We Can Think. In that work he spoke about a machine that he called memex and that would serve to save and later retrieve information.

The idea of ​​the memex consisted of a screen with a keyboard and buttons to search the information collected on a microfilm. The data was then displayed on the screen.

Bush developed the memex thinking about how the human brain worked and memorization processes, in which different levels of associations are created. It was the first step towards what is now known as hypertext, a definition that became popular in 1960.

Fears and end

Bush came to fear that the growing military interest in science could be a disadvantage for the economic development of other areas of society. His political influence began to wane during the government of Harry Truman, who was in power until 1953.

He wrote Modern Arms and Free Men in 1949 to warn of the danger of military dominance over American science. Bush explained the role science had to play in order to guarantee democracy.

He retired from the Carnegie Institution in 1955 and held honorary positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He spent his last years of life in retirement, between Belmont and Cape Cod. A vision problem kept him from his job inventing new machines.

He received several awards throughout his career and was recognized by Presidents Truman and Johnson for his work.

Death

Vannevar Bush died on June 28, 1974 when he was 84 years old. The scientist had suffered a stroke in the first days of that month, after more than a year in which his health had been deteriorating.

Finally, pneumonia put an end to the remarkable engineer's story at his home in Belmont, Massachusetts. By that time, Bush's wife, Phoebe Davis, had already died. She left behind two children, six grandchildren and a sister.

The funeral took place in a private ceremony and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology honored him for his contributions. He was buried in the South Dennis Cemetery.

Media such as The New York Times reported the death of Vannevar Bush. Jerome Bert Wiesner, president of the University of Massachusetts and a former adviser to President JF Kennedy, assured that there was no American citizen with such an important role in the development and growth of science and technology as Bush.

The news of Bush's death was confirmed by a representative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an institution that the scientist came to preside over and where he even held honorary positions.

References

1. Burke, Colin B. Information And Secrecy: Vannevar Bush, Ultra, And The Other Memex. Scarecrow Press, 1994.
2. Bush, Vannevar. Oscillating-Curreint Circuits. Hardpress Publishing, 2012.
3. Bush, Vannevar et al. Principles Of Electrical Engineering. John Wiley, 1951.
4. Nyce, James M. From Memex To Hypertext: Vannevar Bush And The Mind's Machine. Academic Press, 1991.
5. Zachary, G. Pascal. Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer Of The American Century. Free Press, 1997.