*an electrical engineer and an inventor
* born in Massachusetts and did his undergraduate and graduate studies at Tufts
* spent one year at General Electric before joining EE department at MIT in 1919
* spent 25 years at MIT, becoming Dean in 1932 and eventually VP
* in the 1930's worked on the Differential Analyzer; built 3 of them
* final analyzer weighted 100 tons and could solve differential equations of up to 18 variables
* by 1939, had sketched out ideas for memex and had drafted "As We May Think"
* in 1940, presented one page proposal to president Roosevelt to create a National Defense Research Committee - Bush was named chairman
* a year later, NDRC beame part of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) in the Executive office of the president
* in November, 1944, Roosevelt asked Bush to develop a proposal for the government's peactime role in science
* Roosevelt died; Truman was elected
* Bush's report, "Science, The Endless Fontier" was sent to Truman in July, 1945
* The report made a case for the importance of basic research by linking it to economic and social well being. It also tried to make a case for the importance of scientific freedom and autonomy and proposed that a 'National Research Foundation' be established outside the political funding process.
* Eventually the report was acted on and the NSF was created in 1950 after much wrangling; all the aspects of organizational autonomy were lost.
J. C. R. Licklider (1915-1990)
* known as "Lick"
* born in St. Louis
* Undergraduate degrees in psychology, mathematics, physics, Master's in psychology, PhD in psychi-physiology of the suditory system
* in 1942, went to Harvard as a research associate
* became obsessed with interactive computing and time-sharing
* in 1950, left Harvard for MIT
* in 1960, published "Man-Computer Symbiosis"
* by early 1960's wrote memos to his friends about the "Inter-Galactic Computer Network"
* in 1962, He and another guy (Fred Frick of Harvard) were called to DC to see if either one of them would be willing to head up ARPA's Command and Control Division
* They tossed a coin and Licklider ended up with the job.
* He quickly changed the name to "Information Processing Techniques Office" (IPTO) and redefined all of his activities to match his obsessions
* Funded computer science research into time-sharing, the Mouse, interfaces, and supported the first five graduate programs in computer science in the US.
Vinton Cerf (1943 - )
* Known as "Father of the Internet"
* Born in Newhaven
* Studied Math at Stanford, PhD in "Information Technology from UCLA
* From 1973-1978 developed TCP/IP protocol for ARPANET
* TCP/IP replaced prior protocol 1982
* Took job with MCI as VP of Digital Infromation Services
- Responsible for MCI Mail
* 1992 appointed President of the Internet Society
* Founded CNRI (Corporation for National Research Initiatives) with
Robert Kahn [http://www.cnri.reston.va.us/]
* Appointed ACM Fellow for work on Internet (with Kahn).
* Currently Sr. VP of Data Architecture at MCI/Worldcom
* Interesting interview available at
http://www.mediamente.rai.it/english/bibliote/intervis/c/cerf.htm
Joshua Lederberg