Sci&Tech History

In the first half of the nineteenth century, Charles Babbage applied binary numbers to a calculating machine. In 1890, the binary system was developed by Hermann Hollerith which invented punch card, going back to an invention by the early nineteenth-century Frenchman J-M. Jacquard. The invention makes conversion from numbers into instructions possible. Several years later, Lee de Forest invented the audio tube, and with it created electronics. Then between 1910 and 1913, Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead, in their book Principia Mathematica, created symbolic logic which enables us to express all logical concept as numbers. Finally, during World War I, the concepts of programming and feedback were developed, primarily for the purposes of anti-aircraft gunnery. The concepts are used as the basic knowledge for computer development in the early stages.

Relation between technology development and military can be found not only in computer. In 1950s, the SAGE(Semiautomatic Ground Environment) air defense system was developed at the Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Universities as one of the technology producer receive a huge fund for military purposes. According to Melman, in 1968 the Pentagon awarded MIT $119 million, John Hopkins University $57 million, University of California $17 million, and many more.

Does technology driven by military purposes? Are military purposes bad? By using materialism perspective, a gun made someone became bad. But by using humanism perspective, human is the one who decide rather a gun is good or bad. The case study above show us how military influence technology direction, especially its correlation with funding, but how it rise in public area is another issue.

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