The Dream Machine: A History of the Computer Revolution. Chapter 1. The Missouri Boys

Original author: Mitchell Waldrop
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Prologue

Missouri Boys


Joseph Karl Robert Liklider made a strong impression on people. Even in the early years, before he contacted computers, he had a way to make everything clear to people.

“Lick was perhaps the most intuitive genius I have ever known,” William McGill later announced in an interview that was recorded shortly after Lyclider’s death in 1997. McGill explained in this interview that he first met Lick when he entered at Harvard University, as a graduate psychologist in 1948: “When I ever came to Lick with proof of some mathematical relations, I discovered that he already knew about these relations. But he did not work them out in detail, he just ... knew them. He could somehow represent the flow of information, and see various relationships that other people who only manipulated mathematical symbols could not see. It was so amazing that he became a real mystic for all of us: How the hell does Lick do this? How does he see these things? ”

“Talking with Lick about the problem,” added McGill, who later served as president of Columbia University, “added about thirty IQ points to my intelligence.”

(Thanks for the translation, Stanislav Sukhanitsky, who wants to help with the translation - write in a personal email or alexey.stacenko@gmail.com)

Lick made a similarly deep impression on George A. Miller, who first began working with him at the Harvard Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory during World War II. "Lick was a real" American guy "- a tall, good looking blond who was good in all endeavors." Miller will write this many years later. “Incredibly smart and creative, as well as hopelessly kind - when you made a mistake, Lik convinced everyone that you said the most witty joke. He loved jokes. A lot of my memories are connected with him, telling some kind of fascinating absurdity, usually from his own experience, at the same time gesturing with a bottle of Coca-Cola in one hand. ”

It wasn’t such that he split people. At that time, when Lick succinctly embodied the characteristic features of a resident from Missouri, no one could resist his one-sided smile, all the interlocutors smiled back. He looked at the world sunny and friendly, perceived everyone he met as a good person. And that usually worked.

He was a Missouri guy, after all. The name itself came a generation ago in Alsac-Lorraine, a town that was on the French-German border, but his family lived on both sides in Missouri before the Civil War broke out. His father, Joseph Liksider, was a middle-aged country boy living near Sedalia. Joseph also seemed to be a gifted and energetic young man. In 1885, after his father died in a horse accident, twelve-year-old Joseph took responsibility for the family. Realizing that he, his mother, and his sister could not manage the farm on their own, he moved them all to Saint Louis and began working at the local train station before sending his sister to high school and college. After he did this, Joseph went to study at an advertising firm to learn writing and design. And when he gained mastery of these skills, he switched to insurance, eventually becoming an award-winning seller and head of the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce.

At the same time, while meeting a Baptist resurrected youth, Joseph Liklider caught the eye of Miss Margaret Robnett. “I looked at her only once,” he said later, “and I heard her sweet voice singing in the choir, and I realized that I had found the woman I love.” He immediately started taking the train to her parents' farm every weekend, intending to marry her. He succeeded. Their only child was born in Saint Louis on March 11, 1915. He was named Joseph after his father and Karl Robnett after his mother’s older brother.

The sunny look of the child was clear. Joseph and Margaret were old enough for the parents of the first child, then he was forty-two, and she was thirty-four, and they were quite strict in matters of religion and good behavior. But they were also a warm, beloved couple who were enthusiastic about their child and constantly celebrated him. The others did the same: young Robnett, as they called him at home, was not only the only son, but also the only grandson on both sides of the family. When he grew up, his parents inspired him to learn piano, tennis, and whatever he undertook, especially in the intellectual field. And Robnett did not upset them, having matured into a bright, energetic guy with a lively sense of humor, insatiable curiosity, and an unchanging love of technical things.

When he was twelve, for example, he, like any other boy in Saint Louis, acquired a passion for building model airplanes. Perhaps this was due to the growing aircraft industry in his city. Perhaps because of Lindbergh, who had just made a solitary round-the-world trip across the Atlantic Ocean on an airplane called the Spirit of Saint Louis. Or perhaps because planes were the technological wonders of a generation. It doesn't matter - the St. Louis boys were distraught creators of airplane models. And no one could recreate them better than Robnett Liklider. With the permission of his parents, he turned his room into something resembling logging of cork trees. He bought pictures and plans of planes, and drew detailed diagrams of planes independently. He carved balsamic wood blanks with painful care. And he did not sleep all night laying the particles together, covering the wings and body with cellophane, authenticly painting the details, and undoubtedly overdoing it a bit with glue for aircraft models. He was so good at it, that one model kit company paid him the price of an air show in Indianapolis, and he was able to show his fathers and sons how the models were made.

And then, when time was approaching an important sixtieth anniversary, his interests switched to cars. It was not a desire to control the machines, he wanted to fully understand their structure and operation. Therefore, his parents allowed him to buy an old wreck, on the condition that he would not ride it further than their long, winding road.

Young Robnett happily disassembled and reassembled this car of dreams and again, starting with the engine and adding a new part each time to see what was happening: “Well, that's how it really works.” Margaret Liklider, fascinated by this growing technological genius, stood next to him as he worked under the machine and handed out the keys he needed. She got her license on March 11, 1931, on the day of his sixteenth birthday. And in the following years, he refused to pay more than fifty dollars for a car, no matter what form it was, he could fix it and make it drive. (Faced with the fury of inflation, he was forced to raise this limit to $ 150)

Sixteen-year-old Rob, as he was now familiar to his classmates, grew up tall, handsome, athletic in appearance and friendly, with sun-tanned hair and blue eyes, which gave him a significant resemblance to Lindbergh himself. He violently played competitive tennis (and continued to play it until he was 20 years old, until he received an injury that prevented him from playing). And, of course, he had impeccable southern manners. He was obliged to have them: he was constantly surrounded by impeccable women from the south. The old and large house, which was located in University City, a suburb of Washington University, was shared by the Lycliders with Joseph's mother, the married sister of Margaret and her father, and another unmarried sister, Margaret. Every evening since Robnett turned five, he had a duty and honor to give a hand to his aunt, to escort her to the dining table, and keep her stele like a gentleman. Even as an adult, Lick was known as an incredibly courteous and considerate person who rarely raises his voice in anger, who almost always wore a jacket and bow tie even at home, and who found it physically impossible to sit when a woman entered the room.

However, Rob Liklider also grew up in a young man who had his own opinion. When he was a very young boy, according to a story that he constantly told later, his father worked as a minister in their local Baptist church. When Joseph prayed, his son’s job was to get under the keys of the organ and operated with the keys, helping the old organist who could not cope with these on her own. One sleepy Saturday night, when Robnett was ready to fall asleep under the organ, he heard the ring of his father’s flock: “Those of you who seek salvation, stand up!”, And because of this he intuitively jumped to his feet and hit his head on the bottom of the organ keys . Instead of finding salvation, he saw stars.

This experience, as Lick said, gave him an instant insight about the scientific method: Always be as careful as possible in your work and the declaration of your faith.

A third of a century after this incident, of course, it is impossible to find out whether young Robnett really learned this lesson by crashing into the keys. But if you evaluate his achievements over the next life, then we can say that he definitely got this lesson somewhere. Behind his meticulous desire to do things and uncontrollable curiosity was the complete lack of patience for sloppy work, easy solutions, or ornate answers. He refused to be content with everyday life. A young man who subsequently will talk about the “Intergalactic Computer System” and publishing professional papers with the names “System Systems” and “Frameless, wireless shocker for rats” showed a mind that was constantly in search of new things and in constant play.

He also had a small amount of mischievous anarchy. For example, when he came into conflict with official stupidity, he never resisted directly, the belief that a gentleman never arranges scenes was in his blood. He liked to overthrow her. When he joined the Sigma Chi fraternity in his first year at Washington University, he was informed that everyone in the fraternity should always carry two types of cigarettes with them, in case the senior member of the fraternity asks for a cigarette at any time of the day or night. Not being a smoker, he quickly went out and bought the crappiest Egyptian cigarettes he could find in St. Louis. No one else asked him to smoke after that.

Meanwhile, his eternal refusal to satisfy with ordinary things led him to endless questions about the meaning of life. He also changed his personality. He was a “Robnett” at home and a “Rob” for his classmates, but now, apparently to emphasize his new status as a college student, he began to call himself by his middle name: “Call me Face.” Since then, only his oldest friends had the slightest idea of ​​who Rob Liklider was.

Among all that the young man Lik could do in college, he chose education - he was happy to grow as a specialist in any field of knowledge and whenever Lik heard someone inspired about a new field of study, he also wanted to try to study this area . In the first year of his studies, he became a specialist in art, and then switched to engineering. Then he switched to physics and mathematics. And, most of all confusing, he also became a specialist in the real world: at the end of his second year, thieves gutted his father's insurance company and therefore it closed, leaving Joseph without work and his son without the possibility of paying for training. Lick was forced to quit his studies for a year, and go to work as a waiter in a restaurant for motorists. It was one of the few works which could be found during the Great Depression. (Joseph Liklider went crazy just sitting at home surrounded by women from the south, and once found a Baptist gathering in the countryside that needed a minister; he and Margaret ended up spending the rest of their days serving one church after another, feeling the most happily throughout their lives.) When Lick finally returned to training, carrying with him the inexhaustible enthusiasm necessary for higher education, one of his part-time jobs was to look after experimental animals in the psychology department. And when he began to understand what types of studies the professors conducted, he realized that his search was completed. who needed a minister; he and Margaret, in the end, spent the rest of their days serving one church after another, feeling the happiest of their lives.) When Lick finally returned to school, carrying with him the inexhaustible enthusiasm necessary for higher education, one of his work part-time job was to look after experimental animals in the psychology department. And when he began to understand what types of studies the professors conducted, he realized that his search was completed. who needed a minister; he and Margaret, in the end, spent the rest of their days serving one church after another, feeling the happiest of their lives.) When Lick finally returned to school, carrying with him the inexhaustible enthusiasm necessary for higher education, one of his work part-time job was to look after experimental animals in the psychology department. And when he began to understand what types of studies the professors conducted, he realized that his search was completed. one of his part-time jobs was to look after experimental animals in the psychology department. And when he began to understand what types of studies the professors conducted, he realized that his search was completed. one of his part-time jobs was to look after experimental animals in the psychology department. And when he began to understand what types of studies the professors conducted, he realized that his search was completed.

What he was faced with was “physiological” psychology - this area of ​​knowledge was at that time in the midst of its growth. Today, this field of knowledge has acquired the general name of neuroscience: they are engaged in an accurate, detailed study of the brain and its functioning.

It was a discipline dating back to the 19th century when scientists such as Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s most ardent defender, began to argue that behavior, experience, thoughts, and even consciousness had a material foundation in the brain. This was a rather radical position in those days, because it affected not so much science as religion. In fact, many scientists and philosophers in the early nineteenth century tried to argue that not only was the brain made of unusual matter, but it was a concentration of the mind and a reservoir of the soul, violating all the laws of physics. Observations, however, soon showed the opposite. At the beginning of 1861, a systematic study of patients with brain injuries, conducted by the French physiologist Paul Broca, created the first connections between a specific function of the mind - the language - with a specific region of the brain: the region of the left hemisphere of the brain is now known as the Broca region. By the beginning of the 20th century, it was known that the brain is an electric organ, with impulses that are transmitted through billions of thin, cable-like cells called neurons. By 1920, it was found that the brain regions responsible for motility and touch were located in two parallel strands of neuronal tissue located on the sides of the brain. It was also known that the centers responsible for vision are located behind the brain - it is ironic that this area is the most distant from the eyes - while the centers of hearing are where, one could assume from the logic: in the temporal lobe, immediately behind the ears. with impulses that are transmitted through billions of thin, cable-like cells called neurons. By 1920, it was found that the brain regions responsible for motility and touch were located in two parallel strands of neuronal tissue located on the sides of the brain. It was also known that the centers responsible for vision are located behind the brain - it is ironic that this area is the most distant from the eyes - while the centers of hearing are where, one could assume from the logic: in the temporal lobe, immediately behind the ears. with impulses that are transmitted through billions of thin, cable-like cells called neurons. By 1920, it was found that the brain regions responsible for motility and touch were located in two parallel strands of neuronal tissue located on the sides of the brain. It was also known that the centers responsible for vision are located behind the brain - it is ironic that this area is the most distant from the eyes - while the centers of hearing are where, one could assume from the logic: in the temporal lobe, immediately behind the ears.

But even this work was relatively crude. From the moment Lick came across this field of knowledge in the 1930s, researchers began to use the ever-increasing complexity of electronic equipment used by radio and telephone companies. Using electroencephalography, or eeg, they could overhear the electrical activity of the brain, receiving accurate values ​​from detectors placed on the head. Scientists could also get inside the skull and apply a very precisely defined stimulus to the brain itself, and then evaluate how the nervous response spreads to different parts of the nervous system. (By 1950, in fact, they could stimulate and read the activity of single neurons.) During this process, scientists were able to determine the neural circuits of the brain with unprecedented accuracy. In short physiologists and psychologists left the vision of the beginning of the 19th century - that the brain was something mystical, and came to the vision of the 20th century brain, where the brain was something cognizable. This was a system of incredible complexity, to be more precise. Nevertheless, it was a system that did not differ too much from the increasingly sophisticated electronic systems that physicists and engineers built in their laboratories.

Lick was in paradise. Physiological psychology had everything he loved: mathematics, electronics, and the challenge of deciphering the most complex device - the brain. He rushed to engage in this area., And during the training process, thanks to which, of course, he could not have foreseen this, he took his first gigantic step towards that office in the Pentagon. Considering everything that happened earlier, Lik's early fascination with psychology could seem like aberration, a sideline of development, distraction of a twenty-five-year-old man from his final career choice in computer science. But in fact, his base in psychology was the foundation of his concept of using computers. In fact, all the pioneers of computer science to his generations began their careers in 1940 and 1950, with knowledge in mathematics, physics, or electrical engineering, whose technological orientation made them focus on creating and improving gadgets - making cars bigger, faster and more reliable. The face was unique in that it brought deep respect to the abilities of people in this area: the ability to perceive, adapt, make choices and find completely new ways to solve previously unsolvable problems. As an experimental psychologist, he found these abilities as sophisticated and worthy of respect as the ability of computers to execute algorithms. And that is why for him the real test was to create a connection between computers and the people who used them to use the strength of both. ability to perceive, adapt, make choices and find completely new ways to resolve previously insoluble problems. As an experimental psychologist, he found these abilities as sophisticated and worthy of respect as the ability of computers to execute algorithms. And that is why for him the real test was to create a connection between computers and the people who used them to use the strength of both. ability to perceive, adapt, make choices and find completely new ways to resolve previously insoluble problems. As an experimental psychologist, he found these abilities as sophisticated and worthy of respect as the ability of computers to execute algorithms. And that is why for him the real test was to create a connection between computers and the people who used them to use the strength of both.

In any case, at this stage, Lik's growth direction was clear. In 1937, he graduated from Washington University with three degrees in physics, mathematics, and psychology. He stayed for another year to earn a master's degree in psychology. (The record of receiving a master’s degree, which was awarded to Robnett Liklider, was almost the last record about him that appeared in the press.) And in 1938 he entered the doctoral program at the University of Rochester in New York - one of the leading national centers for the study of the auditory region of the brain, a section that tells us how we should hear.

Lika’s departure from Missouri affected not only the change of address. During the first two decades of his life, Lick was an exemplary son for his parents, faithfully attending Baptist meetings and prayer meetings three or four times a week. However, after he left the house, his foot never again crossed the threshold of the church. He could not decide to tell this to his parents, realizing that they would receive an extremely strong blow after learning that he had left the faith that they loved. But he found the limitations of Southern Baptists to be incredibly depressing. More importantly, he could not profess a faith that he did not feel. As he later noted, when asked about his feelings, which he acquired at prayer meetings, he replied, "I did not feel anything."

If many things changed, anyway, at least one remained: Lick was a star in the Department of Psychology at Washington University, and he was a star in Rochester. For his dissertation for the post of candidate of philosophical sciences, he made the first map of the neuronal activity of the auditory area. In particular, he outlined the regions whose presence was critical for distinguishing between different sound frequencies - the main ability that allows you to highlight the rhythm of music. And in the end, he became such an expert in vacuum tube-based electronics - not to mention becoming a real magician in experimenting - that even his professor would come to consult with him.

Lik also excelled at Swarthmore College, located outside of Philadelphia, where he served as a postdoctoral student after receiving his PhD in 1942. During this short time spent at this college, he proved that contrary to Gestalt theory information perception, magnetic coils placed around the nape of the subject do not cause distortion of perception - nevertheless, they cause the subject’s hair to stand on its hind legs.

Overall, 1942 was not a good year for a carefree life. Lika’s career, like the career of a huge number of other researchers, was ready to make a much more serious turn.

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