THINKING MACHINE

Evening Star, Issue 19805, 2 March 1928, Page 2

THINKING MACHINE

REMARKABLE INVENTION Aii electrical thinking machine that solves problem# too complex for the human brain has just been perfected by Dr Vannevar Bush, of tbc Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “/Hie device,” claims Dr Bush, ‘‘opens fields of research hitherto inaccessible.” "The Integraph ’’ may bo called an adding machine carried to the extreme in design. Where workers in the business world are usually satisfied with a machine that does addition, substraction, and multiplication, tbc "Jutegraph ” deals with curves and graphs which represent the past, present, and future. The apparatus requires from eight minutes to au hour to malm computations which would occupy the most experienced mathematician anything from a month to a year to work out by ordinary known methods. The foundation of the apparatuses a watt-hour meter. The mathematician takes the equations in which he is interested and “ plots ” them cm sheets of paper. These sheets arc then passed under pointers, and the operator of the machine keeps the pointers on the curves.

As the pointers move the power flowing through the meter varies in proportion. The meter controls a motor which drives a pencil on another sheet of paper, tracing a curve which is called idle integral and which is tho result desired.