Vannevar Bush and the WWW

Jim Marinetti:
Welcome to Futurists Revisited, your source for yesterday's look at today. For this show we welcome our guest, former Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Dr. Vannevar Bush. Way back in 1945 Dr. Bush published "As We May Think," describing, among other things, a "memex" system for indexing, storing, and accessing the great information of the ages. Some people today are comparing the memex to the World-Wide Web. Dr. Bush, how did you think up such a contraption so long ago?

Vannevar Bush:
Well, Jim, there was a great deal of the scientific information developed during and shortly after World War II. We had a problem keeping it all organized. "Our ineptitude in getting at the record [was] largely caused by the artificiality of systems of indexing." We alphabetized or sorted by number. We forced people to follow certain rules to trace from subclass to subclass. It was so cumbersome. The problem was that "the human mind does not work that way. It operates by association." That's why I conceived the memex.

Jim Marinetti:
So, the memex was really conceived out of human need. So many of the people that come on this show were inspired by technology and tried to figure out a way to make the technology useful. I admire those that dream in your direction, Dr. Bush.

Vannevar Bush:
Thank you Jim.

Jim Marinetti:
Dr. Bush, can you explain your memex to our audience? How did you think it might work?

Bush (left) and Marinetti
discuss the "memex."

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