Vannevar Bush Vannevar

1990/03/01 Azkune Mendia, Iñaki - Elhuyar Fundazioa Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Biografiak

This North American power plant was born a hundred years ago in Everett, Massachusetts, on March 11, 1890.

This North American electrical engineer was born a hundred years ago (March 11, 1890) in the town of Everett, Massachusetts. He completed his first studies in the town of Boston. Subsequently, in the same state, he participated in Tufts University in Medford and obtained a doctorate degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1916.

For several years he was a professor at Vannevar Bush Tufts University. During those years he worked for the US fleet as head of diving detection studies, but in 1919 he joined teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was subsequently linked.

In 1925, Bush and his collaborators built a machine to solve differential equations. Lord Kelvin had the complete theory of building such a machine, but Bush was the first to do it and did it. A half century before Charles Babbage tried to make the computer, but things didn't go well. However, the Bush machine was the first analog computer to solve equations with more than 18 independent variables. In the next decade, in addition, improved versions of the machine were made at the same institute in Massachusetts.

We can say that Vannevar Bush was a pioneer of computers, since based on his machine computer science took great steps in World War II. Norbert Wiener developed cybernetics and then began to improve computers. Until then, mechanical switches used by electronic switches were replaced. The first electronic computer was built in 1946 and since then it is evident that much has been improved. Today, in a few seconds, very complicated calculations are performed and are used in all areas of life: industry, biology, medicine, mathematics, chemistry, administration, linguistics, etc.

Bush developed a mechanism called Rapid Switch, in which information was recovered using microfilme and code.

In 1940, Vannevar Bush was appointed president of the Defense Investigation Commission. He therefore worked within the North American Defense Department during World War II. One of Bush's tasks was the search for uranium. As for the atomic project, he wrote a positive report in 1942 and as a result of it was formed the Manhattan Engineer District, on August 13, that three years after the war was the scientist who made the first atomic bombs that shot down Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

After the war of Vannevar Bush was president of numerous institutions and associations. President of the Commission of the Association for Research and Development in the years 1946-47. In the years 1947 and 48 he was a member of the National Military Organization and president of the Carnegie Institution from 1939 to 1955.

US engineer and researcher who participated in the creation of computers and atomic band, died on June 28, 1974 in the Belmonte of Massachusetts.