LESSON 1.1: World Wide War
TECHNOLOGY UNPLUGGED
LEARNING GOAL: The Basics of Web Technology
Students will understand how the Internet evolved from a classified
government research project into a world wide resource.
Topic #1 - THE WORLD ACCORDING TO A 40-YEAR-OLD DICTIONARY
Topic #2 - WORLD GEOGRAPHY
Topic #3 - NDRC: National Defense Research Committee
The NDRC was created in 1940 by President Roosevelt to "to coordinate, supervise, and
conduct scientific research on the problems underlying the development, production,
and use of mechanisms and devices of warfare." However, we were not at war yet.
Europe was at war. Germany was at war. Japan was at war. But the United States was
still at peace and most Americans wanted to stay out of the conflicts around the world.
The president was taking precautions, especially with the way Germany was taking
down nation after nation with a form of warfare called Blitzkrieg (when dive bombers
would immobilize fighters on the ground with bombs from the sky).
Topic #4 - OSRD: Office of Scientific Research & Development
After a year of working as a committee (sort of like a small group or team), President
Roosevelt (FDR) turned the research team into a big new office of the U.S. Government.
The same standards applied and soon the NDRC just became part of the OSRD.
Topic #5 - Japan picks a fight; wakes a "sleeping giant" – December 7, 1941
Topic #6 - Giant #1: The U.S. Military – War Hawks
The leader of the OSRD at the time was Vannevar Bush, from MIT
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He brings along educators and
teachers from Harvard, MIT, and CalTech to join his government
research team. Together, they work on the following projects:
1. Underwater Sound Laboratory (Sonar & Submarine Warfare)
2. Mobile Radar Fire (Antiaircraft Guns)
3. The Manhattan Project (Nuclear Technology & the Atomic Bomb)
LESSON 1.1: World Wide War
TECHNOLOGY UNPLUGGED
What Bush really wanted to do was to help the Army (soldiers on the ground) and the
Navy (officers in the water) talk to each other. Especially in a time of war, they needed
better ways to communicate. But when someone on the team proposed the idea of
creating a "digital computer," Bush thought the idea was too crazy and didn't accept any
money for the research.
Topic #7 - Giant #2: The Academic Community – Code Breakers
During the 1890 U.S. Census, which counts how many people
are living in a country every ten years, Herman Hollerith built
a machine to store information on punch cards with very
specific punch holes. His company, originally known as the
Tabulating Machine Company, later became known as IBM.
His machines were slow and noisy and they only had 26
uppercase letters and the numbers 0 through 9.
Comptometers (not computers) were also created to do simple
functions based on a sequence of numbers, sort of like a modern calculator. But as
problems became a lot more complicated, especially in times of war, it was important to
have calculating machines that could solve more than one problem at a time.
The most famous person to build a complex machine for solving multiple problems was
a brilliant English mathematician and teacher named Alan Turing. He believed that a
computer could be built that would solve an unlimited and infinite number of problems
if it was programmed to solve those problems through something called an algorithm.
Basically, an algorithm is like a recipe of instructions for a computer to do what its
creator wants it to do. Alan Turing went on to lead a code-breaking team during World
War II, helping to solve secret messages that were going back and forth from the
Germans in Europe. A recent movie, called The Imitation Game, tells the story of Alan
Turing during his "code breaking" days in World War II.
Topic #8 - Ending World War II
The two giants that were awoken when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor were the U.S.
Military and the Academic Community of students and teachers. Together, these two
giants proved to the world how strong AND how smart Americans were. Because of the
OSRD, that research team that was working for the military, the atomic bomb was
created and eventually dropped on two Japanese cities: Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This
ended our war with Japan. Because of Alan Turing and his team of experts, the U.S. was
able to read Hitler's secret codes and ultimately defeat Germany.
LESSON 1.1: World Wide War
TECHNOLOGY UNPLUGGED
Topic #9 - Building an Index-Based Computer
*One Index Card Per Student & One Hole Punch Per Pair (Follow Directions)
Topic #10 - The ENIAC and the Rise of Women Engineers
One of the biggest problems in the 1940s and 1950s was
that even the best computers had a hard time storing,
remembering, and recalling information for someone to
use later. Eventually, someone started noticing patterns of
extremely common letters and words that people were
using to communicate in writing. For example, what word
shows up most often in this paragraph? How many times?
Which letters are the most frequently used in this
paragraph? How many times? And why would any of this matter to someone trying to
build a computer?
Since computers needed people to work them and more people were interested in using
them, the word "digital" was a way of describing the fact that people were using their
fingers, or "digits," to type information. And one of the first and most famous "digital"
computers was called the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), built
by students and teachers at the University of Pennsylvania. Two of the most famous
women on the team that built ENIAC were Jean Bartik and Betty Snyder.
CLOSING DISCUSSION TOPIC - What is the difference between a computer and a
human being? For example, why is a calculator NOT free to decide whether it wants to
tell me the answer to a math problem?
KEYWORD REVIEW - Below are the nine important keywords that you'll need to
remember for your Web Tech Quiz in four weeks at the end of Learning Goal #1:
NDRC
Alan Turing
military vs academic
OSRD
algorithm
December 7, 1941
Vannevar Bush
digital
ENIAC