Memex

The memex is a machine created by the imagination of Vannevar Bush in the 1940s in an attempt to create a system by which indexing information is compacted and able to be accessible in a few moments. He realized that we had now reached a point where we were inundated with information and knowledge, but did not have an efficient way to access it. He created a design for a machine that would allow him to photo hand written notes to be cataloged for future reference, replacing libraries and books. This would no longer require people to physically go to a central location and try to search for a specific piece of information, sifting through hundreds of thousands of books. This machine would give people the ability to type in a few letters, characters or pictures and the machine would search through its database of almost infinite information and retrieve it in your very own home. Not only would it find the information for you, but it would remember that you had once looked for it and keep that pathway incase you needed it again.

This most closely resembles the modern day computer in conjunction with access to the internet. Having all the worlds information (well, almost) at your finger tips was the goal of Bush, though I wonder what he would think of the internet and the information that is readily available to anyone willing to search for it.

Bush’s memex machine is tailored to its user, keeping a memory of sorts for previous searches and holding information that the user may need again. It’s relation to the mind is almost that of a spare brain, capable of holding information that may have been forgotten and not accessible. The machine allows you to now access that information almost as fast as you would be able to think it. There is also a relation in how the search for information is similar to how the brain thinks of something, though not nearly as complex or as quick. Thinking a thought can easily lead to several others with either a strong or extremely weak connection to the previous. The memex machine is similar in its design for searches, but on a much simpler scale.