Search results
In his autobiography [1] Vannevar Bush tells the story of a draftsman who learned differential equations in mechanical terms from working on the construction and maintenance of the MIT differential analyzer.
Vannevar Bush (born March 11, 1890, Everett, Mass., U.S.—died June 28, 1974, Belmont, Mass.) was an American electrical engineer and administrator who developed the Differential Analyzer and oversaw government mobilization of scientific research during World War II.
However, the first widely practical general-purpose differential analyser was constructed by Harold Locke Hazen and Vannevar Bush at MIT, 1928–1931, comprising six mechanical integrators. [ 9 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ] In the same year, Bush described this machine in a journal article as a "continuous integraph". [ 12 ]
Vannevar Bush's differential analyzer. Bush’s Differential Analyzer was big and complex. Six integrators and several input and output tables had to be carefully connected for each new problem. Doing so required both mechanical skill and a willingness to get covered in oil. View Artifact Detail.
The American electrical engineer Vannevar Bush and others at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology invented the first continuous integraph, later called a differential analyzer, during the early 1930s.
Vannevar Bush and the Differential Analyzer: The Text and Context of an Early Computer. LARRY OWENS. One day in 1942, the Rockefeller Differential cated to winning the war.
Watch this fancifully imagined movie clip of a differential engine at work, taken from the 1956 film “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.” Visit MIT’s page on “Vannevar Bush’s Differential Analyzer” to experience a rendered version of the analyzer based on descriptions and photographs of the machine.
The first (relatively) large scale analog computer was the 'differential analyzer' invented and constructed at MIT by Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) in the early 1930's. The machine was a completely mechanical assembly of gears and shafts driven by electric motors.
The most important pre-war effort was started in the 1920s by Vannevar Bush. It culminated in 1942 with the dedication of his huge Rockefeller Differential Analyzer at MIT -- a one-hundred-ton machine with 2000 vacuum tubes and 150 motors. Bush's Analyzer was an analog computer.
Bush joined MIT at age 29 as an electrical engineering professor and led the design of the differential analyzer. During World War II, he chaired the National Defense Research Committee and advised President Franklin D. Roosevelt on scientific matters.
