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PROFESSOR: Welcome to
STS.050, History of MIT.

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00:00:38,290 --> 00:00:39,360
I'm Professor Mindell.

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00:00:39,360 --> 00:00:40,710
This is Professor Smith.

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00:00:40,710 --> 00:00:42,910
And before we introduce
ourselves or say anything

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00:00:42,910 --> 00:00:45,740
about the class, I just
want to do a little exercise

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00:00:45,740 --> 00:00:50,860
about what do you know
about the history of MIT,

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00:00:50,860 --> 00:00:53,770
either big picture stuff
or even random facts.

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00:00:57,522 --> 00:00:58,022
Yep.

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00:00:58,022 --> 00:00:59,010
AUDIENCE: Used to be in Boston.

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00:00:59,010 --> 00:00:59,750
PROFESSOR: Sorry.

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00:00:59,750 --> 00:01:01,085
Used to be in Boston.

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00:01:01,085 --> 00:01:01,585
OK.

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00:01:05,190 --> 00:01:05,980
That is correct.

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00:01:05,980 --> 00:01:08,900
PROFESSOR: Used to be
called [INAUDIBLE] Boston.

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As sort of a nickname.

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00:01:11,810 --> 00:01:13,730
AUDIENCE: Don't remember.

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00:01:13,730 --> 00:01:14,670
AUDIENCE: Boston Tech.

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00:01:14,670 --> 00:01:15,628
PROFESSOR: Boston Tech.

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00:01:15,628 --> 00:01:18,353
Yep.

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00:01:18,353 --> 00:01:20,230
AUDIENCE: I think it
was founded in 1861.

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00:01:20,230 --> 00:01:22,154
PROFESSOR: That's correct.

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00:01:22,154 --> 00:01:22,820
PROFESSOR: Jeez.

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00:01:22,820 --> 00:01:23,962
You don't need this class.

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00:01:27,756 --> 00:01:28,381
PROFESSOR: Yep.

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00:01:28,381 --> 00:01:30,172
AUDIENCE: I think
because of the Civil War,

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00:01:30,172 --> 00:01:32,247
it had to wait to open.

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00:01:32,247 --> 00:01:32,830
PROFESSOR: OK.

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00:01:32,830 --> 00:01:33,750
That's correct, too.

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00:01:33,750 --> 00:01:37,660
The American Civil War started
right after the founding.

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00:01:40,430 --> 00:01:45,773
And there weren't any classes
taught for about four years.

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00:01:45,773 --> 00:01:47,856
AUDIENCE: It was founded
by William Barton Rogers.

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00:01:47,856 --> 00:01:49,250
PROFESSOR: OK.

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00:01:49,250 --> 00:01:50,990
That's also good.

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00:01:50,990 --> 00:01:53,880
PROFESSOR: What
was his nickname?

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00:01:53,880 --> 00:01:54,870
AUDIENCE: Barty?

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00:01:54,870 --> 00:01:55,809
[LAUGHTER]

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00:01:55,809 --> 00:01:56,850
AUDIENCE: William Rogers.

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00:01:56,850 --> 00:02:00,315
PROFESSOR: I don't
think he had a nickname.

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00:02:00,315 --> 00:02:01,800
AUDIENCE: William Bart Rogers.

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00:02:01,800 --> 00:02:02,540
PROFESSOR: Cool.

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00:02:02,540 --> 00:02:04,932
Bart.

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00:02:04,932 --> 00:02:05,890
PROFESSOR: What was it?

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00:02:05,890 --> 00:02:06,390
Do you know?

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00:02:06,390 --> 00:02:07,820
PROFESSOR: No.

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00:02:07,820 --> 00:02:08,550
PROFESSOR: Billy?

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00:02:08,550 --> 00:02:11,394
PROFESSOR: We had a house
master over at Burton Conner.

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00:02:11,394 --> 00:02:13,060
We had a reunion the
other day, and they

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00:02:13,060 --> 00:02:14,900
had a big picture
William Barton Rogers.

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And one of the students
came up and put a ID clip on

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and it said Billy.

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00:02:19,812 --> 00:02:21,960
So maybe it's Billy.

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00:02:21,960 --> 00:02:24,050
PROFESSOR: Somebody
sent me-- there

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00:02:24,050 --> 00:02:29,720
is one sentence in all
of his papers and letters

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00:02:29,720 --> 00:02:33,830
and records which shows
any amount of cheerfulness

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00:02:33,830 --> 00:02:36,737
or playfulness,
which is, I think

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00:02:36,737 --> 00:02:38,820
it was after his brother
died, he wrote to someone

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00:02:38,820 --> 00:02:41,340
about six months later
said, I'm finally

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00:02:41,340 --> 00:02:43,760
starting to feel brisk again.

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00:02:43,760 --> 00:02:46,070
He was a serious guy.

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00:02:46,070 --> 00:02:47,407
What else do we know about MIT?

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00:02:47,407 --> 00:02:49,490
AUDIENCE: They got one of
the federal land grants.

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00:02:49,490 --> 00:02:50,050
PROFESSOR: OK.

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00:02:50,050 --> 00:02:50,549
Good.

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00:02:56,945 --> 00:02:58,750
We'll certainly talk
about what that means.

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00:03:03,178 --> 00:03:04,162
Yep.

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AUDIENCE: Me?

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00:03:05,638 --> 00:03:06,632
PROFESSOR: Yep.

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00:03:06,632 --> 00:03:08,590
AUDIENCE: I think at
least when it started out,

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00:03:08,590 --> 00:03:10,467
there weren't any
female students.

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00:03:10,467 --> 00:03:11,050
PROFESSOR: OK.

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00:03:11,050 --> 00:03:11,620
That's true.

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00:03:11,620 --> 00:03:14,060
No women at first, but later on.

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00:03:22,275 --> 00:03:23,650
We'll also talk
a lot about that.

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00:03:23,650 --> 00:03:24,097
Yep.

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00:03:24,097 --> 00:03:25,438
AUDIENCE: At some point
there was discussion

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00:03:25,438 --> 00:03:27,226
about wanting to
merge with Harvard.

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00:03:27,226 --> 00:03:28,660
PROFESSOR: Oh, OK.

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00:03:28,660 --> 00:03:29,970
Many points as it turns out.

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00:03:29,970 --> 00:03:31,360
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

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00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:32,200
Five or six.

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00:03:42,996 --> 00:03:44,870
We don't have to just
talk about the founding

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00:03:44,870 --> 00:03:45,710
in the early years.

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00:03:45,710 --> 00:03:47,275
There's a lot of
time in between.

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00:03:47,275 --> 00:03:48,010
So.

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00:03:48,010 --> 00:03:48,970
Yep.

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00:03:48,970 --> 00:03:51,721
AUDIENCE: It got a lot
of money from Polaroid

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00:03:51,721 --> 00:03:53,164
to build a new campus.

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00:03:53,164 --> 00:03:54,044
PROFESSOR: OK.

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00:03:54,044 --> 00:03:55,210
MERRITT ROE SMITH: Polaroid?

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00:03:55,210 --> 00:03:56,043
PROFESSOR: Polaroid?

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00:03:59,930 --> 00:04:02,460
AUDIENCE: It was one of
the guys who started Kodak.

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00:04:02,460 --> 00:04:02,790
PROFESSOR: Eastman Kodak.

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00:04:02,790 --> 00:04:03,498
PROFESSOR: Kodak.

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00:04:03,498 --> 00:04:04,649
Eastman Kodak.

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00:04:04,649 --> 00:04:06,690
See, I knew he was gonna
jump on you because he's

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00:04:06,690 --> 00:04:11,652
from Rochester, New York,
home of Eastman Kodak.

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00:04:11,652 --> 00:04:14,061
PROFESSOR: That's right.

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00:04:14,061 --> 00:04:14,560
Yeah.

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00:04:14,560 --> 00:04:19,740
Polaroid is a Boston
company with ties to MIT,

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00:04:19,740 --> 00:04:22,500
although not specifically
an MIT spin-off,

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00:04:22,500 --> 00:04:24,340
starting in the
1930s, really getting

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00:04:24,340 --> 00:04:27,200
going in the '50s and '60s.

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00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:29,150
Whereas Eastman Kodak
started around the turn

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00:04:29,150 --> 00:04:30,620
of the 20th century.

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00:04:30,620 --> 00:04:32,550
Anybody know the
year that MIT moved

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00:04:32,550 --> 00:04:34,845
across the river from
Boston to Cambridge?

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00:04:34,845 --> 00:04:35,720
AUDIENCE: 1916.

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00:04:35,720 --> 00:04:36,642
PROFESSOR: 1916.

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00:04:36,642 --> 00:04:37,820
Right.

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00:04:37,820 --> 00:04:39,760
So that's also a
pretty important date.

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00:04:53,895 --> 00:04:56,020
Nobody's mentioned anything
that was invented here.

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00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:01,280
Maybe nothing was.

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00:05:01,280 --> 00:05:02,036
AUDIENCE: Radar.

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00:05:02,036 --> 00:05:02,392
PROFESSOR: Sorry.

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00:05:02,392 --> 00:05:04,725
AUDIENCE: There was a lot of
development for the radar--

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00:05:04,725 --> 00:05:05,650
PROFESSOR: OK.

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00:05:05,650 --> 00:05:06,385
Radar, certainly.

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00:05:10,060 --> 00:05:11,740
Anybody know where
the radar development

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00:05:11,740 --> 00:05:12,882
took place physically?

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00:05:12,882 --> 00:05:13,725
AUDIENCE: W 20.

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00:05:13,725 --> 00:05:15,665
Or not W 20, Building 20.

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00:05:15,665 --> 00:05:16,640
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

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00:05:16,640 --> 00:05:17,720
PROFESSOR: Anybody
know where that was?

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00:05:17,720 --> 00:05:18,920
AUDIENCE: Where
Stata is right now.

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00:05:18,920 --> 00:05:19,320
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

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00:05:19,320 --> 00:05:20,030
Right there.

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00:05:22,810 --> 00:05:25,140
PROFESSOR: To give you an
idea how long I've been here,

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00:05:25,140 --> 00:05:28,030
my first office
was in Building 20.

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00:05:28,030 --> 00:05:30,500
And, the offices
in that building,

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00:05:30,500 --> 00:05:33,510
it was like a WWII barracks.

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00:05:33,510 --> 00:05:35,290
It was all made of
wood, basically.

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00:05:35,290 --> 00:05:37,099
It's a wonder it
didn't burn down,

140
00:05:37,099 --> 00:05:38,640
all this stuff that
went on in there.

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00:05:38,640 --> 00:05:42,010
But my office was huge.

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00:05:42,010 --> 00:05:43,730
But the problem was
that by the time

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00:05:43,730 --> 00:05:46,030
I got there, it was
pretty well run down.

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00:05:46,030 --> 00:05:48,480
And there was a hole in
the wall and squirrels used

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00:05:48,480 --> 00:05:52,490
to run around inside
and then dash out.

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00:05:52,490 --> 00:05:54,750
Our colleague, Leo Marks,
you'll hear about today,

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00:05:54,750 --> 00:05:56,770
had an even bigger--
his office was

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00:05:56,770 --> 00:05:58,580
like a one bedroom
apartment over there.

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00:05:58,580 --> 00:06:00,390
It's really cool.

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00:06:00,390 --> 00:06:02,544
A lot of stuff went on there.

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00:06:02,544 --> 00:06:05,265
AUDIENCE: Which building
is better, 20 or Stata?

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00:06:05,265 --> 00:06:07,390
PROFESSOR: I haven't had
enough experience in Stata

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00:06:07,390 --> 00:06:08,000
to tell you.

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00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:10,950
Stata visually, of course,
is far more interesting,

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00:06:10,950 --> 00:06:12,350
but I hear it leaks.

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00:06:12,350 --> 00:06:14,282
Building 20 didn't leak.

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00:06:14,282 --> 00:06:15,740
AUDIENCE: Except
for the squirrels.

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00:06:15,740 --> 00:06:16,340
PROFESSOR: Pardon?

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00:06:16,340 --> 00:06:17,590
AUDIENCE: Except
for the squirrels.

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00:06:17,590 --> 00:06:18,350
PROFESSOR: I still didn't hear.

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00:06:18,350 --> 00:06:19,540
AUDIENCE: Except
for the squirrels.

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00:06:19,540 --> 00:06:20,630
PROFESSOR: Except
for the squirrels.

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00:06:20,630 --> 00:06:21,130
Yes.

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00:06:21,130 --> 00:06:23,930
PROFESSOR: Building 20 was built
in, I think, under six months

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00:06:23,930 --> 00:06:25,444
in 1940, 1941.

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00:06:25,444 --> 00:06:26,110
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

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00:06:26,110 --> 00:06:30,520
PROFESSOR: And it
lasted for 50 years.

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00:06:30,520 --> 00:06:32,190
PROFESSOR: Well, it
was torn down what?

169
00:06:32,190 --> 00:06:33,135
10 years ago, maybe?

170
00:06:33,135 --> 00:06:34,593
PROFESSOR: Yeah,
not that long ago.

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00:06:34,593 --> 00:06:36,420
PROFESSOR: Not so long ago.

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00:06:36,420 --> 00:06:37,680
Long ago in your lifetimes.

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00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:41,174
But in mine, a mere drop.

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00:06:41,174 --> 00:06:42,215
PROFESSOR: Anything else?

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00:06:46,360 --> 00:06:47,818
AUDIENCE: The
departments here have

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00:06:47,818 --> 00:06:49,380
gone through a lot of changes.

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00:06:49,380 --> 00:06:50,719
PROFESSOR: OK.

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00:06:50,719 --> 00:06:52,010
The departments certainly have.

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00:06:52,010 --> 00:06:53,926
Although a lot of them
are also quite similar.

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00:07:03,960 --> 00:07:04,944
Yep.

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00:07:04,944 --> 00:07:07,404
AUDIENCE: During the 1960s,
the basement of Building 10

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00:07:07,404 --> 00:07:09,257
was excavated for
a super laser that

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00:07:09,257 --> 00:07:11,395
was designed to
bounce off a orbiting

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00:07:11,395 --> 00:07:13,295
satellite out to
the Soviet Union.

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00:07:13,295 --> 00:07:15,195
That was one of our
weapons in the Cold War

186
00:07:15,195 --> 00:07:16,247
that no one ever knew of.

187
00:07:16,247 --> 00:07:16,830
PROFESSOR: Oh.

188
00:07:16,830 --> 00:07:17,580
That's news to me.

189
00:07:17,580 --> 00:07:18,961
I didn't know about that.

190
00:07:18,961 --> 00:07:19,460
Ah.

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00:07:19,460 --> 00:07:19,915
AUDIENCE: That's awesome.

192
00:07:19,915 --> 00:07:21,366
PROFESSOR: Is it still there?

193
00:07:21,366 --> 00:07:22,318
AUDIENCE: Yeah.

194
00:07:22,318 --> 00:07:23,746
It's a secret sub-basement.

195
00:07:23,746 --> 00:07:27,090
[LAUGHTER]

196
00:07:27,090 --> 00:07:30,480
PROFESSOR: You got
to take us on a tour.

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00:07:30,480 --> 00:07:34,670
Does anybody know how much
secret research goes on

198
00:07:34,670 --> 00:07:36,130
on this campus?

199
00:07:36,130 --> 00:07:37,948
Military secret research?

200
00:07:37,948 --> 00:07:39,620
AUDIENCE: None anymore?

201
00:07:39,620 --> 00:07:41,010
PROFESSOR: That's right, none.

202
00:07:41,010 --> 00:07:43,120
Does MIT do any secret research?

203
00:07:45,640 --> 00:07:47,891
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

204
00:07:47,891 --> 00:07:49,140
AUDIENCE: Not that we know of.

205
00:07:49,140 --> 00:07:49,806
PROFESSOR: Well.

206
00:07:49,806 --> 00:07:50,487
[LAUGHTER]

207
00:07:50,487 --> 00:07:51,070
PROFESSOR: No?

208
00:07:51,070 --> 00:07:51,790
PROFESSOR: No?

209
00:07:51,790 --> 00:07:54,300
PROFESSOR: Actually, MIT does
a lot of secret research.

210
00:07:54,300 --> 00:07:55,274
It's just not--

211
00:07:55,274 --> 00:07:55,940
PROFESSOR: Here.

212
00:07:55,940 --> 00:07:57,210
PROFESSOR: Here.

213
00:07:57,210 --> 00:07:57,772
Where is it?

214
00:07:57,772 --> 00:07:58,730
AUDIENCE: Lincoln Labs.

215
00:07:58,730 --> 00:08:00,040
PROFESSOR: Lincoln Labs
out in the suburbs.

216
00:08:00,040 --> 00:08:00,540
Yeah.

217
00:08:03,174 --> 00:08:05,090
So that's certainly a
thing we'll come across,

218
00:08:05,090 --> 00:08:11,561
too, is Cold War and
generally the relationships

219
00:08:11,561 --> 00:08:12,310
with the military.

220
00:08:19,470 --> 00:08:23,470
Anybody know what MIT's
budget is roughly?

221
00:08:28,210 --> 00:08:30,160
$100 billion?

222
00:08:30,160 --> 00:08:31,760
$100 million?

223
00:08:31,760 --> 00:08:33,344
AUDIENCE: Endowment's
like $8 billion.

224
00:08:33,344 --> 00:08:34,009
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

225
00:08:34,009 --> 00:08:36,039
Endowment's between $8
billion and $10 billion,

226
00:08:36,039 --> 00:08:37,314
depending on how you count.

227
00:08:39,784 --> 00:08:40,950
What do we spend every year?

228
00:08:44,080 --> 00:08:45,492
About $1 billion.

229
00:08:45,492 --> 00:08:46,258
PROFESSOR: Really?

230
00:08:46,258 --> 00:08:46,758
My god.

231
00:08:46,758 --> 00:08:48,820
I didn't know it was that much.

232
00:08:48,820 --> 00:08:52,040
PROFESSOR: A big part of that
is actually at Lincoln Labs.

233
00:08:52,040 --> 00:08:54,060
I forget exactly.

234
00:08:54,060 --> 00:08:54,580
10% or 20%.

235
00:08:56,880 --> 00:08:58,380
AUDIENCE: I wonder
how many people--

236
00:08:58,380 --> 00:08:59,434
PROFESSOR: Work.

237
00:08:59,434 --> 00:09:00,225
Including students?

238
00:09:04,811 --> 00:09:06,560
How many students are
there, first of all?

239
00:09:06,560 --> 00:09:08,702
Anybody know how
many undergrads?

240
00:09:08,702 --> 00:09:09,694
AUDIENCE: 4,000?

241
00:09:09,694 --> 00:09:10,610
PROFESSOR: What is it?

242
00:09:10,610 --> 00:09:12,165
It's like 4,100 today or--

243
00:09:12,165 --> 00:09:12,873
PROFESSOR: Is it?

244
00:09:12,873 --> 00:09:14,160
Really.

245
00:09:14,160 --> 00:09:15,720
PROFESSOR: Around.

246
00:09:15,720 --> 00:09:18,357
It's about to grow a
little bit to about 4,500.

247
00:09:18,357 --> 00:09:19,315
How many grad students?

248
00:09:19,315 --> 00:09:20,610
AUDIENCE: 6,000.

249
00:09:20,610 --> 00:09:23,280
PROFESSOR: About the
same, 5,000 to 6,000.

250
00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:28,680
Then another 5,000 or so
faculty and staff people

251
00:09:28,680 --> 00:09:30,254
and other kinds of researchers.

252
00:09:30,254 --> 00:09:31,920
Anybody know how many
faculty there are?

253
00:09:37,340 --> 00:09:38,830
Roughly about 1,000.

254
00:09:38,830 --> 00:09:41,500
About 960 maybe.

255
00:09:41,500 --> 00:09:43,280
PROFESSOR: Does that
include adjuncts?

256
00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:44,070
PROFESSOR: No.

257
00:09:44,070 --> 00:09:45,880
AUDIENCE: Just straight
regular faculty.

258
00:09:45,880 --> 00:09:49,030
PROFESSOR: There aren't very
many adjunct faculty, actually.

259
00:09:49,030 --> 00:09:51,530
So, about 1,000 faculty.

260
00:09:51,530 --> 00:09:54,600
Interestingly, that number
has not grown more than 10%

261
00:09:54,600 --> 00:09:56,980
in the last 20 years.

262
00:09:56,980 --> 00:09:59,670
Whereas the budget and
the general size of MIT

263
00:09:59,670 --> 00:10:02,690
has about tripled
in that time frame.

264
00:10:02,690 --> 00:10:06,150
So, if you ever wonder why
the professor seem overworked,

265
00:10:06,150 --> 00:10:08,150
that's why.

266
00:10:08,150 --> 00:10:09,890
Anything else about
the history of MIT?

267
00:10:13,740 --> 00:10:16,640
Big accomplishments.

268
00:10:16,640 --> 00:10:17,890
AUDIENCE: Nobel Prize winners.

269
00:10:17,890 --> 00:10:20,865
PROFESSOR: Lots of Nobel
Prize winners for sure.

270
00:10:20,865 --> 00:10:25,510
AUDIENCE: Instrumentations
Lab during the Apollo program.

271
00:10:25,510 --> 00:10:28,230
And apparently like a
third of NASA's astronauts

272
00:10:28,230 --> 00:10:29,997
have been MIT educated
at some point.

273
00:10:29,997 --> 00:10:30,580
PROFESSOR: OK.

274
00:10:30,580 --> 00:10:32,120
Big connection to NASA.

275
00:10:32,120 --> 00:10:35,150
MIT built the computers
that landed on the Moon.

276
00:10:35,150 --> 00:10:39,530
I think about a third of the
people who walked on the Moon

277
00:10:39,530 --> 00:10:40,560
were MIT graduates.

278
00:10:40,560 --> 00:10:43,590
And about a third of the
total American astronauts

279
00:10:43,590 --> 00:10:47,790
had been MIT graduates,
which I think

280
00:10:47,790 --> 00:10:49,585
is more than anywhere else.

281
00:10:49,585 --> 00:10:51,834
And I think that also I
read a statistic where--

282
00:10:51,834 --> 00:10:53,500
AUDIENCE: Other than
military academies.

283
00:10:53,500 --> 00:10:54,150
PROFESSOR: Sorry.

284
00:10:54,150 --> 00:10:54,700
AUDIENCE: Other than military--

285
00:10:54,700 --> 00:10:56,491
PROFESSOR: Other than
the military academy.

286
00:10:58,950 --> 00:11:02,160
A third of all US
human space flights

287
00:11:02,160 --> 00:11:05,040
have had MIT graduates on them.

288
00:11:05,040 --> 00:11:08,160
We're gonna have a big astronaut
reunion this spring, actually,

289
00:11:08,160 --> 00:11:13,780
which you'll all be invited
to as part of the class.

290
00:11:13,780 --> 00:11:18,715
Not all of them but quite a good
number of them are coming back.

291
00:11:18,715 --> 00:11:20,590
So a lot of connections
to the space program.

292
00:11:20,590 --> 00:11:22,265
What else?

293
00:11:22,265 --> 00:11:24,765
PROFESSOR: Do you know who's
chairing the 150th anniversary?

294
00:11:28,790 --> 00:11:30,249
[LAUGHTER]

295
00:11:30,249 --> 00:11:32,290
PROFESSOR: So we'll talk
a little bit about that.

296
00:11:35,230 --> 00:11:36,370
Other facts about MIT?

297
00:11:38,822 --> 00:11:40,322
AUDIENCE: Was
high-speed photography

298
00:11:40,322 --> 00:11:42,800
developed by an MIT Professor?

299
00:11:42,800 --> 00:11:44,230
PROFESSOR: Not
exactly high-speed

300
00:11:44,230 --> 00:11:46,140
photography, but close.

301
00:11:46,140 --> 00:11:49,077
Anybody know what the actual
technical part of that is?

302
00:11:49,077 --> 00:11:50,480
AUDIENCE: He did the strobes.

303
00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:52,710
PROFESSOR: Electronic strobes.

304
00:11:52,710 --> 00:11:57,740
So up until not that long
ago, certainly in my lifetime,

305
00:11:57,740 --> 00:12:01,986
if you bought a camera,
it came with flashbulbs

306
00:12:01,986 --> 00:12:03,360
which were like
in a little cube.

307
00:12:03,360 --> 00:12:05,590
Anybody ever seen a flash cube?

308
00:12:05,590 --> 00:12:06,614
And they go pshh.

309
00:12:06,614 --> 00:12:07,280
And that was it.

310
00:12:07,280 --> 00:12:08,946
One picture and then
they'd turn around.

311
00:12:08,946 --> 00:12:11,640
And you'd get four per cube.

312
00:12:11,640 --> 00:12:15,610
And Edgerton invented what is
now on not only on your cameras

313
00:12:15,610 --> 00:12:19,319
but maybe even on your phones,
the actual electronic strobe.

314
00:12:19,319 --> 00:12:21,360
Which means that you could
fire it with a battery

315
00:12:21,360 --> 00:12:28,410
and it was basically usable
hundreds of thousands of times,

316
00:12:28,410 --> 00:12:30,670
which had made possible
high-speed photography.

317
00:12:30,670 --> 00:12:34,560
We'll talk about
that a little bit.

318
00:12:34,560 --> 00:12:36,130
Other interesting
facts about MIT?

319
00:12:39,640 --> 00:12:43,509
Anybody name a company that
was started by MIT graduates?

320
00:12:43,509 --> 00:12:44,550
AUDIENCE: Analog Devices.

321
00:12:44,550 --> 00:12:46,641
PROFESSOR: Analog
Devices is one.

322
00:12:46,641 --> 00:12:47,140
Sorry.

323
00:12:47,140 --> 00:12:47,820
AUDIENCE: Bose.

324
00:12:47,820 --> 00:12:49,650
PROFESSOR: Bose is one.

325
00:12:49,650 --> 00:12:50,540
AUDIENCE: iRobot?

326
00:12:50,540 --> 00:12:51,740
PROFESSOR: Sorry.

327
00:12:51,740 --> 00:12:52,550
AUDIENCE: iRobot.

328
00:12:52,550 --> 00:12:53,480
PROFESSOR: IRobot.

329
00:12:53,480 --> 00:12:54,710
AUDIENCE: A123 Systems.

330
00:12:54,710 --> 00:12:55,777
PROFESSOR: A123.

331
00:12:55,777 --> 00:12:56,610
AUDIENCE: Harmonics.

332
00:12:56,610 --> 00:12:57,692
PROFESSOR: Harmonics.

333
00:12:57,692 --> 00:12:58,900
AUDIENCE: TerraFusion.

334
00:12:58,900 --> 00:12:59,245
PROFESSOR: Sorry.

335
00:12:59,245 --> 00:12:59,910
AUDIENCE: TerraFusion.

336
00:12:59,910 --> 00:13:00,957
PROFESSOR: TerraFusion.

337
00:13:00,957 --> 00:13:01,849
AUDIENCE: Dropbox.

338
00:13:01,849 --> 00:13:02,640
PROFESSOR: Dropbox.

339
00:13:02,640 --> 00:13:03,345
That's right.

340
00:13:03,345 --> 00:13:04,665
I use Dropbox all the time.

341
00:13:08,160 --> 00:13:10,120
Not actually Polaroid.

342
00:13:10,120 --> 00:13:13,839
Raytheon was started
partly by MIT folks.

343
00:13:13,839 --> 00:13:14,880
MERRITT ROE SMITH: Miter.

344
00:13:14,880 --> 00:13:16,327
PROFESSOR: The
Miter Corporation.

345
00:13:16,327 --> 00:13:18,410
I'm just trying to think
a little bit further back

346
00:13:18,410 --> 00:13:19,420
into time.

347
00:13:19,420 --> 00:13:21,740
Anybody ever hear of the
Digital Equipment Corporation?

348
00:13:21,740 --> 00:13:24,970
That's kind of before this
generation a little bit.

349
00:13:24,970 --> 00:13:27,390
So obviously, nobody
said anything too much

350
00:13:27,390 --> 00:13:28,500
about computers.

351
00:13:28,500 --> 00:13:30,590
Lot of the work in
computing was done here,

352
00:13:30,590 --> 00:13:33,460
software, artificial
intelligence, robotics.

353
00:13:33,460 --> 00:13:34,620
Human Genome Project.

354
00:13:34,620 --> 00:13:37,330
Anybody ever hear of that?

355
00:13:37,330 --> 00:13:39,300
Significant fraction
of that was here.

356
00:13:41,880 --> 00:13:45,060
We'll come across 1,000
things that you didn't even

357
00:13:45,060 --> 00:13:48,110
think of were here.

358
00:13:48,110 --> 00:13:48,630
OK.

359
00:13:48,630 --> 00:13:51,290
PROFESSOR: I think one
of the great inventors

360
00:13:51,290 --> 00:13:55,259
is still living here-- I mean
of the fairly distant past--

361
00:13:55,259 --> 00:13:56,300
and that's Jay Forrester.

362
00:13:56,300 --> 00:13:57,484
Have you ever heard of him?

363
00:14:00,790 --> 00:14:01,957
What do you recollect, Eric?

364
00:14:01,957 --> 00:14:02,456
Pardon.

365
00:14:02,456 --> 00:14:03,970
AUDIENCE: The
Whirlwind computer.

366
00:14:03,970 --> 00:14:05,600
PROFESSOR: Whirlwind, yes.

367
00:14:05,600 --> 00:14:07,556
And why was that a
significant development?

368
00:14:07,556 --> 00:14:08,222
Do you remember?

369
00:14:10,958 --> 00:14:13,730
Well, you got the
Whirlwind all right.

370
00:14:13,730 --> 00:14:16,235
It's the first core memory.

371
00:14:16,235 --> 00:14:20,800
One of the first random-access
core memories, as I recollect.

372
00:14:20,800 --> 00:14:23,610
So it had great
significance to the building

373
00:14:23,610 --> 00:14:27,210
of the type of computers
that you're using

374
00:14:27,210 --> 00:14:30,010
and the desktops
and all of that.

375
00:14:30,010 --> 00:14:31,530
It was very, very basic.

376
00:14:31,530 --> 00:14:34,700
It's said that IBM
really made its money

377
00:14:34,700 --> 00:14:37,950
off the use of that development.

378
00:14:37,950 --> 00:14:41,520
And I was in conversations
many years ago

379
00:14:41,520 --> 00:14:44,310
in which President
Wiesner expressed

380
00:14:44,310 --> 00:14:48,450
some discontent about the fact
that IBM had not ponied up

381
00:14:48,450 --> 00:14:52,590
enough support money for
MIT because it had gotten so

382
00:14:52,590 --> 00:14:55,430
much from MIT in terms
of it's technical.

383
00:14:55,430 --> 00:14:56,700
I don't know how true that is.

384
00:14:56,700 --> 00:14:59,610
But Jerry Wiesner sure
was not happy about

385
00:14:59,610 --> 00:15:00,810
that, I know that much.

386
00:15:04,104 --> 00:15:06,520
PROFESSOR: Also, Whirlwind was
sort of the first real-time

387
00:15:06,520 --> 00:15:07,130
interactive--

388
00:15:07,130 --> 00:15:07,970
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

389
00:15:07,970 --> 00:15:09,530
PROFESSOR: --computer,
which was--

390
00:15:09,530 --> 00:15:12,520
PROFESSOR: Where did
the money come from it?

391
00:15:12,520 --> 00:15:15,785
Who supported that?

392
00:15:15,785 --> 00:15:16,980
AUDIENCE: Navy?

393
00:15:16,980 --> 00:15:17,730
PROFESSOR: Pardon.

394
00:15:17,730 --> 00:15:18,700
AUDIENCE: The navy?

395
00:15:18,700 --> 00:15:21,363
PROFESSOR: Well, partly
navy, partly air force.

396
00:15:21,363 --> 00:15:22,790
Yeah.

397
00:15:22,790 --> 00:15:27,100
A lot of military contracting
down here after World War II.

398
00:15:27,100 --> 00:15:27,940
We'll see that.

399
00:15:27,940 --> 00:15:30,479
I mean that's a big
part of the system.

400
00:15:30,479 --> 00:15:33,020
PROFESSOR: Anybody know where
the Whirlwind computer was back

401
00:15:33,020 --> 00:15:35,478
in the days when computers had
entire buildings themselves?

402
00:15:40,980 --> 00:15:43,590
It was on Mass Ave. in
the Barta Building, which

403
00:15:43,590 --> 00:15:45,016
is now where IS&T is.

404
00:15:45,016 --> 00:15:46,140
Anybody know where that is?

405
00:15:49,050 --> 00:15:51,300
PROFESSOR: Some people are
shaking their heads almost

406
00:15:51,300 --> 00:15:52,250
in disgust.

407
00:15:52,250 --> 00:15:53,837
[LAUGHTER]

408
00:15:53,837 --> 00:15:54,420
PROFESSOR: OK.

409
00:15:54,420 --> 00:15:57,561
So I just want to start with a
little brainstorming about some

410
00:15:57,561 --> 00:15:59,060
of the things that
are gonna come up

411
00:15:59,060 --> 00:16:02,307
over the course of the term.

412
00:16:02,307 --> 00:16:03,890
Maybe we'll introduce
ourselves first.

413
00:16:03,890 --> 00:16:06,274
I'll ask Professor Smith
to introduce himself,

414
00:16:06,274 --> 00:16:08,190
say a little bit about
his research and stuff.

415
00:16:08,190 --> 00:16:08,780
PROFESSOR: OK.

416
00:16:08,780 --> 00:16:09,940
Hi.

417
00:16:09,940 --> 00:16:12,020
My name full name is
Merritt Roe Smith,

418
00:16:12,020 --> 00:16:14,080
but I go by my middle name, Roe.

419
00:16:14,080 --> 00:16:16,180
And I'm a member
of two faculties

420
00:16:16,180 --> 00:16:20,390
here, the STS faculty that David
chairs and also the history

421
00:16:20,390 --> 00:16:21,690
faculty.

422
00:16:21,690 --> 00:16:24,440
And I've been here since 1979.

423
00:16:24,440 --> 00:16:26,780
So I've been here quite a while.

424
00:16:26,780 --> 00:16:30,240
And my research
interests are primarily

425
00:16:30,240 --> 00:16:36,280
in 19th century industrial
history and technology.

426
00:16:36,280 --> 00:16:38,200
And as I've said
to many friends,

427
00:16:38,200 --> 00:16:41,820
my expertise falls off
rapidly after World War I.

428
00:16:41,820 --> 00:16:46,240
But the good news is
that his picks up rapidly

429
00:16:46,240 --> 00:16:47,080
in that period.

430
00:16:47,080 --> 00:16:49,985
And so David is the
expert on the modern era

431
00:16:49,985 --> 00:16:52,690
of MIT's history.

432
00:16:52,690 --> 00:16:54,370
So we make a fairly good team.

433
00:16:54,370 --> 00:16:58,100
I will give the earlier
lectures on William Barton

434
00:16:58,100 --> 00:17:02,480
Rogers and things like that.

435
00:17:02,480 --> 00:17:05,329
I guess my main my
main research has

436
00:17:05,329 --> 00:17:07,569
been about machine tools
and the development

437
00:17:07,569 --> 00:17:10,040
of interchangeable
parts manufacturing.

438
00:17:10,040 --> 00:17:12,250
And I'm particularly
interested in that subject

439
00:17:12,250 --> 00:17:17,530
because that, too, was a
military-sponsored technology

440
00:17:17,530 --> 00:17:20,329
that had a tremendous
spin-off effect

441
00:17:20,329 --> 00:17:24,450
that once these new techniques
were developed for making guns,

442
00:17:24,450 --> 00:17:28,820
the machine tools and gauging
methods and things like that,

443
00:17:28,820 --> 00:17:32,690
were disseminated into all
sorts of manufacturing,

444
00:17:32,690 --> 00:17:35,710
one of the first
being sewing machines.

445
00:17:35,710 --> 00:17:38,170
So it was primarily
a technology used

446
00:17:38,170 --> 00:17:40,810
by women in which this gun
making technology found

447
00:17:40,810 --> 00:17:42,030
it's earliest applications.

448
00:17:42,030 --> 00:17:44,560
And then you can see it
spreading further out

449
00:17:44,560 --> 00:17:47,110
until you see the earliest
automobiles in the United

450
00:17:47,110 --> 00:17:50,920
States being made with very
similar methods that come right

451
00:17:50,920 --> 00:17:53,390
out of this old
gun-making industry.

452
00:17:53,390 --> 00:17:55,210
So those are the sorts
of things that I'm

453
00:17:55,210 --> 00:17:58,245
interested in basically is
how new technologies develop

454
00:17:58,245 --> 00:17:59,495
and how they get disseminated.

455
00:18:02,110 --> 00:18:04,960
PROFESSOR: So I'm David Mindell.

456
00:18:04,960 --> 00:18:07,545
As Roe mentioned, I'm in the
program in Science, Technology,

457
00:18:07,545 --> 00:18:09,740
and Society as an
historian of technology,

458
00:18:09,740 --> 00:18:12,450
which I'm the
director of, and also

459
00:18:12,450 --> 00:18:15,210
in aeronautics and astronautics.

460
00:18:15,210 --> 00:18:17,450
I'm actually an
electrical engineer

461
00:18:17,450 --> 00:18:19,700
interested in electronics
and control systems.

462
00:18:19,700 --> 00:18:21,700
But these days a lot
of my work in that area

463
00:18:21,700 --> 00:18:25,710
happens in the aerospace world
so I'm dual in AeroAstro.

464
00:18:28,440 --> 00:18:30,880
Most of my research is
focused, as Roe mentioned,

465
00:18:30,880 --> 00:18:35,380
on 20th century, some of
it military technology,

466
00:18:35,380 --> 00:18:38,240
particularly control
systems and feedback control

467
00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:40,510
and digital computers.

468
00:18:40,510 --> 00:18:43,672
And I wrote a book
about the Apollo program

469
00:18:43,672 --> 00:18:45,130
and the computers
that we mentioned

470
00:18:45,130 --> 00:18:47,400
before that were used
to land on the moon.

471
00:18:47,400 --> 00:18:51,970
And I'm generally interested
in human machine interaction

472
00:18:51,970 --> 00:18:55,180
and the ways the evolving
technology changes

473
00:18:55,180 --> 00:18:58,480
the rules of the users
and of the people who

474
00:18:58,480 --> 00:19:00,900
are operating systems.

475
00:19:00,900 --> 00:19:03,120
And that's still something
that I study today.

476
00:19:03,120 --> 00:19:05,980
Done a lot of work
in the undersea world

477
00:19:05,980 --> 00:19:08,611
doing exploration of the
deep ocean with robots.

478
00:19:08,611 --> 00:19:10,735
Anybody here ever participate
in the JASON project?

479
00:19:14,030 --> 00:19:15,100
In junior high?

480
00:19:15,100 --> 00:19:16,480
No.

481
00:19:16,480 --> 00:19:19,932
Did a lot of work with deep-sea
robots exploring shipwrecks

482
00:19:19,932 --> 00:19:20,640
around the world.

483
00:19:20,640 --> 00:19:22,420
And that still interests me.

484
00:19:22,420 --> 00:19:24,220
And now I work a
lot on space flight

485
00:19:24,220 --> 00:19:26,680
in aviation, too, and
what roles people have

486
00:19:26,680 --> 00:19:29,280
in technological systems
and how those roles change

487
00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:31,930
as technologies evolve
and how the engineers who

488
00:19:31,930 --> 00:19:33,780
build those technologies
think about people.

489
00:19:37,370 --> 00:19:39,660
There's really sort
of two or three things

490
00:19:39,660 --> 00:19:41,724
that led us to begin
teaching this class.

491
00:19:41,724 --> 00:19:43,390
This is the second
time we've taught it.

492
00:19:43,390 --> 00:19:45,370
We taught it last
spring as well.

493
00:19:45,370 --> 00:19:50,340
And one of them
is obvious, which

494
00:19:50,340 --> 00:19:52,030
is that, as you
probably all know,

495
00:19:52,030 --> 00:19:56,020
this semester is MIT's 150th
anniversary celebrations.

496
00:19:56,020 --> 00:19:58,600
And I've been chairing
the planning committee

497
00:19:58,600 --> 00:20:01,340
for those celebrations
for the last few years.

498
00:20:01,340 --> 00:20:04,624
And when I started doing that, I
didn't know anything about MIT.

499
00:20:04,624 --> 00:20:06,790
And in grand tradition,
when you don't know anything

500
00:20:06,790 --> 00:20:09,900
about a subject, you get a bunch
of students in a room and start

501
00:20:09,900 --> 00:20:13,400
teaching about it and you
all sort of learn together.

502
00:20:13,400 --> 00:20:17,070
And so that was part of
the idea for the class.

503
00:20:17,070 --> 00:20:19,220
And then another part of
the idea for the class

504
00:20:19,220 --> 00:20:24,390
was there's actually been only
in the last few years enough

505
00:20:24,390 --> 00:20:27,730
really professionally
written history about MIT.

506
00:20:27,730 --> 00:20:30,100
So that we won't spend
the whole term talking

507
00:20:30,100 --> 00:20:33,030
about just the
fraternities and sororities

508
00:20:33,030 --> 00:20:37,240
and the great inventions
and the sort of great man

509
00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:38,160
history of MIT.

510
00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:39,290
We'll do some of that.

511
00:20:39,290 --> 00:20:42,220
But there's also been
enough professional history

512
00:20:42,220 --> 00:20:45,120
where you can really
talk about what

513
00:20:45,120 --> 00:20:47,214
is the history of
science and technology?

514
00:20:47,214 --> 00:20:48,005
How does it evolve?

515
00:20:48,005 --> 00:20:50,080
How do technologies
and knowledge

516
00:20:50,080 --> 00:20:53,390
evolve-- which is really
what both Roe and I study

517
00:20:53,390 --> 00:20:56,690
in our different contexts--
and use MIT as a lens

518
00:20:56,690 --> 00:21:00,840
through which to look at that
issue over the last 150 years.

519
00:21:00,840 --> 00:21:07,170
So we will be looking at some
of those larger questions.

520
00:21:07,170 --> 00:21:08,520
What counts as knowledge?

521
00:21:08,520 --> 00:21:09,730
How do engineers work?

522
00:21:09,730 --> 00:21:11,250
How do scientists work?

523
00:21:11,250 --> 00:21:13,960
How do they interact with
the larger society, both

524
00:21:13,960 --> 00:21:18,097
the politics and the culture
and the social questions?

525
00:21:18,097 --> 00:21:20,430
And how do they actually carry
on their work day to day?

526
00:21:20,430 --> 00:21:24,140
And what does it mean to invent
something or create a new idea?

527
00:21:24,140 --> 00:21:27,710
And fortunately, there's enough
material out there on MIT

528
00:21:27,710 --> 00:21:30,260
that we can examine
those questions

529
00:21:30,260 --> 00:21:32,670
through the history of MIT.

530
00:21:32,670 --> 00:21:34,490
And then it happened
that because Roe

531
00:21:34,490 --> 00:21:37,770
is a 19th-century expert and I
work more on the 20th century,

532
00:21:37,770 --> 00:21:41,610
we kind of got together and
roughly split the material.

533
00:21:41,610 --> 00:21:43,170
We'll go back and
forth quite a bit

534
00:21:43,170 --> 00:21:45,270
as well, especially this term.

535
00:21:45,270 --> 00:21:47,572
This term is a
little bit special,

536
00:21:47,572 --> 00:21:48,530
more than a little bit.

537
00:21:48,530 --> 00:21:50,404
It's a lot special and
a little bit different

538
00:21:50,404 --> 00:21:53,780
from last term in that the
actual 150th celebrations are

539
00:21:53,780 --> 00:21:57,140
going on as we're taking the
class and teaching the class.

540
00:21:57,140 --> 00:22:00,760
And so you'll see a
little bit about that

541
00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:02,710
as we pass out the syllabus.

542
00:22:02,710 --> 00:22:05,650
So that's just sort of a rough
introduction to the class.

543
00:22:05,650 --> 00:22:09,060
I also wanted to ask Michaela
Thompson to introduce herself

544
00:22:09,060 --> 00:22:11,360
as our teaching assistant.

545
00:22:11,360 --> 00:22:12,276
MICHAELA THOMPSON: Hi.

546
00:22:12,276 --> 00:22:13,260
I'm Michaela Thompson.

547
00:22:13,260 --> 00:22:18,672
I'm a third-year PhD
student in the HASS program.

548
00:22:18,672 --> 00:22:20,476
And I study,
basically, the history

549
00:22:20,476 --> 00:22:23,600
of biology and
environmental history.

550
00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:26,295
PROFESSOR: And among many
other cool facts about Michaela

551
00:22:26,295 --> 00:22:28,527
is that if you go to
the Boston Aquarium

552
00:22:28,527 --> 00:22:30,110
and see the penguins
swimming around--

553
00:22:30,110 --> 00:22:32,068
MICHAELA THOMPSON: I'm
down in there with them.

554
00:22:32,068 --> 00:22:34,770
PROFESSOR: She's the lady in
the wetsuit feeding the penguins

555
00:22:34,770 --> 00:22:36,204
and swimming around with them.

556
00:22:36,204 --> 00:22:38,120
Maybe we'll take a field
trip and come see her

557
00:22:38,120 --> 00:22:39,566
when she's working one day.

558
00:22:39,566 --> 00:22:40,280
MICHAELA THOMPSON:
I will be there

559
00:22:40,280 --> 00:22:41,530
and I will wave at all of you.

560
00:22:46,005 --> 00:22:48,130
PROFESSOR: So maybe we
should pass out the syllabus

561
00:22:48,130 --> 00:22:49,463
and we can sort of walk through.

562
00:22:49,463 --> 00:22:51,639
Any questions on what
we've talked about so far?

563
00:22:51,639 --> 00:22:53,680
MICHAELA THOMPSON: Is
anybody missing a syllabus?

564
00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:54,510
PROFESSOR: Oh, we
already passed out.

565
00:22:54,510 --> 00:22:55,498
OK, good.

566
00:22:55,498 --> 00:22:56,486
I don't have one yet.

567
00:23:04,900 --> 00:23:07,220
So just to go through
the top, we really

568
00:23:07,220 --> 00:23:11,340
talked about this description.

569
00:23:11,340 --> 00:23:13,114
Again, there are
a number of themes

570
00:23:13,114 --> 00:23:14,780
that are in this sort
of first paragraph

571
00:23:14,780 --> 00:23:18,430
that will keep coming
up again and again.

572
00:23:18,430 --> 00:23:22,260
The relationship of MIT
to the surrounding city

573
00:23:22,260 --> 00:23:23,970
and the region and the country.

574
00:23:28,490 --> 00:23:31,540
Stories about MIT
students and professors.

575
00:23:31,540 --> 00:23:34,440
The student body and
who is an MIT student

576
00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:36,660
and how does that
person-- there is

577
00:23:36,660 --> 00:23:38,560
no typical profile,
or really at any time,

578
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:40,820
but the student body
changes quite a bit

579
00:23:40,820 --> 00:23:42,420
over the course of
these 150 years.

580
00:23:42,420 --> 00:23:46,030
That's something
we'll be looking at.

581
00:23:46,030 --> 00:23:47,810
The physical development
of the campus.

582
00:23:47,810 --> 00:23:52,710
We talked about the move a
little bit across the river.

583
00:23:52,710 --> 00:23:55,150
MIT's relationship
with industry.

584
00:23:55,150 --> 00:23:57,630
That's a big one, which
is kind of a pendulum that

585
00:23:57,630 --> 00:24:00,390
swings every 10 years or so.

586
00:24:00,390 --> 00:24:02,636
Too much industrial involvement,
not enough relevance

587
00:24:02,636 --> 00:24:04,510
to industry, too much
industrial involvement,

588
00:24:04,510 --> 00:24:07,270
not enough-- practically
see-- maybe somebody

589
00:24:07,270 --> 00:24:09,930
can calculate the period
of that pendulum for us.

590
00:24:09,930 --> 00:24:12,150
It's pretty
predictable, actually.

591
00:24:12,150 --> 00:24:13,870
And then, also,
MIT's relationship

592
00:24:13,870 --> 00:24:16,449
to the government,
which you might guess

593
00:24:16,449 --> 00:24:18,990
moves almost exactly the same
as the relationship to industry

594
00:24:18,990 --> 00:24:20,240
but in the opposite direction.

595
00:24:23,650 --> 00:24:25,010
Where are we now in that swing?

596
00:24:25,010 --> 00:24:26,845
Does anybody want to
have a guess on that?

597
00:24:33,970 --> 00:24:37,050
I would say that we're probably
at the point of just beginning

598
00:24:37,050 --> 00:24:41,180
the swing beginning away from
government back toward industry

599
00:24:41,180 --> 00:24:42,040
for a while.

600
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:45,420
Because the stimulus package
that Obama passed in 2008

601
00:24:45,420 --> 00:24:47,820
was very, very
supportive of MIT.

602
00:24:47,820 --> 00:24:49,431
And that's about to run out.

603
00:24:49,431 --> 00:24:51,430
And generally the government
is about to run out

604
00:24:51,430 --> 00:24:52,990
of money altogether.

605
00:24:52,990 --> 00:24:56,130
And that's gonna be a big issue
for MIT in the coming five

606
00:24:56,130 --> 00:24:56,770
years or so.

607
00:24:56,770 --> 00:25:00,070
And naturally that swings
back toward industry.

608
00:25:06,707 --> 00:25:08,040
A little bit about requirements.

609
00:25:11,250 --> 00:25:13,330
We do want you to come
to class every week.

610
00:25:13,330 --> 00:25:16,280
We do want you to participate
in the discussions.

611
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:18,856
We will ask for you to close
your laptops when we're

612
00:25:18,856 --> 00:25:20,730
having a class discussion,
which is generally

613
00:25:20,730 --> 00:25:22,542
gonna be the second
half of the class.

614
00:25:22,542 --> 00:25:24,250
You can use them for
the notes and things

615
00:25:24,250 --> 00:25:25,541
in the first half of the class.

616
00:25:28,490 --> 00:25:31,580
And then there's a series
of reflection papers, which

617
00:25:31,580 --> 00:25:37,240
is a significant amount of the
work over the course the term.

618
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:41,020
We want you to submit
them online to the TA.

619
00:25:41,020 --> 00:25:44,831
And, let's see what's
the actual number.

620
00:25:44,831 --> 00:25:48,180
There are 11 class sessions
where there is actually

621
00:25:48,180 --> 00:25:49,680
reading that's assigned.

622
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:52,470
And so we're gonna ask you to
submit eight reflection papers.

623
00:25:52,470 --> 00:25:54,220
So you can opt out
of any three weeks

624
00:25:54,220 --> 00:25:56,400
over the course of the term.

625
00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:58,230
And when you do
submit the papers,

626
00:25:58,230 --> 00:26:01,540
we would like them to have them
the night before by 5 o'clock.

627
00:26:01,540 --> 00:26:04,980
And there's a reason
for that, which is then

628
00:26:04,980 --> 00:26:08,030
we'll compile all the questions
and the thoughts the people

629
00:26:08,030 --> 00:26:10,910
have from those
reflection papers

630
00:26:10,910 --> 00:26:13,500
and use them as the starting
point for the discussion

631
00:26:13,500 --> 00:26:15,040
the following day.

632
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:17,260
So we need to have those then.

633
00:26:17,260 --> 00:26:20,750
We're not gonna grade
them A, B, C, or D,

634
00:26:20,750 --> 00:26:22,409
but we do want to
see people thinking

635
00:26:22,409 --> 00:26:23,825
through what's on
the reflections.

636
00:26:28,650 --> 00:26:32,850
One to two pages is
all that is required.

637
00:26:32,850 --> 00:26:35,400
Then of those eight
reflection papers--

638
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:37,150
you'll notice when we
come to the syllabus

639
00:26:37,150 --> 00:26:40,370
that a number of the days
that we meet in class

640
00:26:40,370 --> 00:26:44,880
are concurrent with
the MIT 150th Symposia.

641
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:47,590
And so if you like, you
can write reflection paper

642
00:26:47,590 --> 00:26:53,419
on the symposia instead of on
the readings for that week,

643
00:26:53,419 --> 00:26:54,960
with basically the
same requirements.

644
00:26:57,466 --> 00:27:00,090
And then they're going to be two
writing assignments, basically

645
00:27:00,090 --> 00:27:03,090
two papers, which we'll
send out the assignments

646
00:27:03,090 --> 00:27:06,276
for as the time goes closer.

647
00:27:06,276 --> 00:27:08,400
And one of the really nice
things about teaching it

648
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:11,980
this term, even as
opposed to a year ago,

649
00:27:11,980 --> 00:27:13,480
is-- I'll show you
in a few minutes.

650
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:17,020
There's a vast amount of
material, just raw material,

651
00:27:17,020 --> 00:27:20,410
on the web that's been made
available from which we can use

652
00:27:20,410 --> 00:27:24,110
as research materials
for these papers.

653
00:27:24,110 --> 00:27:27,850
So there's the breakdown of
the grading, 20% on the papers,

654
00:27:27,850 --> 00:27:29,790
big band on the
writing assignment,

655
00:27:29,790 --> 00:27:31,125
and then class participation.

656
00:27:35,623 --> 00:27:37,610
Although, somehow that
doesn't add up to 100.

657
00:27:37,610 --> 00:27:39,522
We must have missed a
line from last year.

658
00:27:39,522 --> 00:27:41,210
[LAUGHTER]

659
00:27:41,210 --> 00:27:43,700
PROFESSOR: We'll get
back to you on that one.

660
00:27:43,700 --> 00:27:46,330
Somehow we must have
edited something.

661
00:27:46,330 --> 00:27:48,730
Oh no, sorry, there's two
writing assignments, 70

662
00:27:48,730 --> 00:27:49,330
and then 30.

663
00:27:52,380 --> 00:27:55,310
There's the absence policy.

664
00:27:55,310 --> 00:27:57,100
There's really only
one required book.

665
00:27:57,100 --> 00:27:59,530
I see one person's picked
it up already, which

666
00:27:59,530 --> 00:28:02,480
is the book that David
Kaiser-- our colleague-- edited

667
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:05,671
called Moments of
Decision, which they had

668
00:28:05,671 --> 00:28:07,920
no intention of this when
they put this book together.

669
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:09,600
But it really comes
out almost perfectly

670
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:11,772
as a textbook for the course.

671
00:28:11,772 --> 00:28:14,020
Do you want to say anything
more about the book, Roe?

672
00:28:14,020 --> 00:28:18,045
PROFESSOR: Well, the
essays in it are not long.

673
00:28:18,045 --> 00:28:19,720
I'll tell you that.

674
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:24,110
Each essay's around 15 printed
pages, 17, somewhere in there.

675
00:28:24,110 --> 00:28:26,260
So they're easily read.

676
00:28:26,260 --> 00:28:28,950
I've read the entire
book twice now.

677
00:28:28,950 --> 00:28:31,310
And I contributed
an essay to it.

678
00:28:31,310 --> 00:28:33,770
But quite apart from
my essay, I actually

679
00:28:33,770 --> 00:28:36,390
think these essays
are pretty damn good.

680
00:28:36,390 --> 00:28:39,041
And it's the sort of book that
you can use in this class.

681
00:28:39,041 --> 00:28:40,790
And then you could
turn around and give it

682
00:28:40,790 --> 00:28:43,060
to your parents or somebody
like that because it

683
00:28:43,060 --> 00:28:48,210
does a good encapsulated
history of MIT at certain--

684
00:28:48,210 --> 00:28:50,670
it's not a complete
history of MIT.

685
00:28:50,670 --> 00:28:53,620
But it looks at the
critical moments.

686
00:28:53,620 --> 00:28:56,860
And I think it's a
good little book.

687
00:28:56,860 --> 00:28:58,380
I'll say that much.

688
00:28:58,380 --> 00:29:01,810
PROFESSOR: Good, I agree.

689
00:29:01,810 --> 00:29:05,950
I should say also next Tuesday,
February 15, from 4:00 to 6:00

690
00:29:05,950 --> 00:29:07,970
we're having an event as
part of the 150th that

691
00:29:07,970 --> 00:29:11,060
is more or less the authors from
these books getting together

692
00:29:11,060 --> 00:29:14,690
to talk about the
history of MIT.

693
00:29:14,690 --> 00:29:16,560
And so you'd be welcome
to join us for that.

694
00:29:19,950 --> 00:29:22,450
And then there are going to be
additional readings, a fairly

695
00:29:22,450 --> 00:29:28,400
significant amount of them,
available on the MIT site.

696
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:31,710
I'm sure you've all taken
humanities classes at MIT

697
00:29:31,710 --> 00:29:33,270
before.

698
00:29:33,270 --> 00:29:36,370
There's a lot of reading
in the humanities.

699
00:29:36,370 --> 00:29:38,770
That's sort of the equivalent
of the problem sets

700
00:29:38,770 --> 00:29:42,870
is reading through a fairly
large amount of material

701
00:29:42,870 --> 00:29:44,830
and absorbing it
and then fitting it

702
00:29:44,830 --> 00:29:47,460
into the rest of the material.

703
00:29:47,460 --> 00:29:49,990
So that's a very important
part of the class.

704
00:29:49,990 --> 00:29:52,310
And we do expect you to
spend sort of the equivalent

705
00:29:52,310 --> 00:29:54,476
amount of time that you
would spend on a problem set

706
00:29:54,476 --> 00:29:59,184
in a science class
on the reading.

707
00:29:59,184 --> 00:30:00,600
So just to go
through a little bit

708
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:02,829
week by week, what
we'll do today,

709
00:30:02,829 --> 00:30:04,620
when we're done going
through the syllabus,

710
00:30:04,620 --> 00:30:09,320
I want to show you a little
video about the founding of MIT

711
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:13,772
and then a little bit
about web resources.

712
00:30:13,772 --> 00:30:15,730
And then we'll take a
break, which we'll always

713
00:30:15,730 --> 00:30:18,220
do about halfway through
the three hour period

714
00:30:18,220 --> 00:30:20,220
because it is a
long time period.

715
00:30:20,220 --> 00:30:24,590
And during the break,
we'll give you extra time

716
00:30:24,590 --> 00:30:27,160
to read an article
that we'll pass out

717
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:31,850
which is about the birth and
the idea of technology, which

718
00:30:31,850 --> 00:30:34,900
turns out is not a very old
idea and is almost exactly

719
00:30:34,900 --> 00:30:36,600
the same age as MIT.

720
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:39,800
The t in MIT was one of the
very significant first uses

721
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:42,611
of the word technology.

722
00:30:42,611 --> 00:30:44,610
And then we'll come back
for a little discussion

723
00:30:44,610 --> 00:30:47,050
of the ideas in that article.

724
00:30:47,050 --> 00:30:48,910
And then toward the
end of the class,

725
00:30:48,910 --> 00:30:50,570
Karen Arenson will come in.

726
00:30:50,570 --> 00:30:53,760
And she actually
is past president

727
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:56,300
of the MIT Alumni
Association and Brass

728
00:30:56,300 --> 00:30:57,820
member of the Corporation.

729
00:30:57,820 --> 00:31:01,360
But also is a
journalist who conducted

730
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:04,380
100 or so oral history
interviews with people

731
00:31:04,380 --> 00:31:06,740
about the last 40 years of MIT.

732
00:31:06,740 --> 00:31:09,130
And she'll talk a little
bit about that process.

733
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:16,749
Then next week, we go way
back before even the founding.

734
00:31:16,749 --> 00:31:18,790
Do you want to say anything
about that week, Roe?

735
00:31:18,790 --> 00:31:20,400
PROFESSOR: Well
yeah, the second week

736
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:25,610
is basically trying to put
MIT in a larger context.

737
00:31:25,610 --> 00:31:30,100
So I'm going to give a lecture
about the United States

738
00:31:30,100 --> 00:31:34,370
circa 1850, 1860, the years
that William Barton Rogers was

739
00:31:34,370 --> 00:31:37,700
beginning to formulate
this plan for what

740
00:31:37,700 --> 00:31:40,270
he called a
"polytechnic institute."

741
00:31:40,270 --> 00:31:43,930
And so the readings here,
there are two readings.

742
00:31:43,930 --> 00:31:46,460
One of them is from
a textbook that I

743
00:31:46,460 --> 00:31:47,890
was one of the co-authors of.

744
00:31:47,890 --> 00:31:50,889
It's the one that's listed
under Pauline Maier's name.

745
00:31:50,889 --> 00:31:52,430
Actually, the pages
you'll be reading

746
00:31:52,430 --> 00:31:53,960
there are pages
that I've written

747
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:56,960
in the text on the
1850's basically.

748
00:31:56,960 --> 00:32:00,300
So you'll get my take on that
period from the textbook,

749
00:32:00,300 --> 00:32:01,020
basically.

750
00:32:01,020 --> 00:32:05,880
And then the other
reading is, I would say,

751
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:09,140
a broader cultural, political
look at the United States

752
00:32:09,140 --> 00:32:13,570
between 1820 and 1860 that
looks very broadly at society.

753
00:32:13,570 --> 00:32:19,010
So that's even a bigger
picture of the United States

754
00:32:19,010 --> 00:32:20,340
during this period.

755
00:32:20,340 --> 00:32:23,170
And the idea here is
just to kind of immerse

756
00:32:23,170 --> 00:32:25,110
you in that period
to get you thinking

757
00:32:25,110 --> 00:32:28,220
about why was a
technical institute

758
00:32:28,220 --> 00:32:30,550
necessary at this point in time?

759
00:32:30,550 --> 00:32:36,110
Why 1861 and not 1900
or sometime like that?

760
00:32:36,110 --> 00:32:38,990
It turns out that
MIT's founding,

761
00:32:38,990 --> 00:32:42,040
it occurs at a very
important moment in history.

762
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:44,960
And one of the things I want
to talk about in my lecture

763
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:49,560
is why 1861 basically.

764
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:53,440
Why is this the
right moment to found

765
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:55,540
an institute of technology?

766
00:32:55,540 --> 00:32:58,880
There's none other like
it prior to the Civil War.

767
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:02,680
There were other engineering
schools, but not like MIT.

768
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:03,740
MIT was different.

769
00:33:03,740 --> 00:33:06,870
And I'll say one thing
too about this place.

770
00:33:06,870 --> 00:33:09,920
The more I learn about MIT,
the more I'm amazed by it.

771
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:12,930
It's really an
interesting place.

772
00:33:12,930 --> 00:33:15,120
And I didn't know much
about MIT's history

773
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:17,010
until about two years
ago when I started

774
00:33:17,010 --> 00:33:19,730
preparing for this essay
on William Barton Rogers.

775
00:33:19,730 --> 00:33:22,560
But the more I learn about
it, the more captivated

776
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:25,520
I've become by the history of
this place and all the things

777
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:26,780
that it's done.

778
00:33:26,780 --> 00:33:29,030
I don't think there's another
educational institution,

779
00:33:29,030 --> 00:33:31,360
or surely a higher
educational institution,

780
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:33,670
in the United
States that has had

781
00:33:33,670 --> 00:33:36,190
a more interesting history
than this place has.

782
00:33:36,190 --> 00:33:38,550
We're sure to get arguments
from people up the street.

783
00:33:38,550 --> 00:33:42,770
But that's just my own
personal perspective.

784
00:33:42,770 --> 00:33:44,625
It's quite a
remarkable institution.

785
00:33:44,625 --> 00:33:49,050
And it takes root in the
middle of the American Civil

786
00:33:49,050 --> 00:33:52,870
War of all times, one of
the worst possible moments

787
00:33:52,870 --> 00:33:55,810
to try to found a college.

788
00:33:55,810 --> 00:33:57,340
How did that happen?

789
00:33:57,340 --> 00:34:00,730
So that's what that second
week is basically about

790
00:34:00,730 --> 00:34:02,320
is how did this
place get started?

791
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:05,320
And why?

792
00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:07,710
PROFESSOR: Because we'll
come across this then, too.

793
00:34:07,710 --> 00:34:11,719
The actual date of the
signing of the charter for MIT

794
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:16,130
is April 10, 1861.

795
00:34:16,130 --> 00:34:20,380
April 12, 1861 is the
firing on Fort Sumter, which

796
00:34:20,380 --> 00:34:22,812
is the first combat
of the Civil War.

797
00:34:22,812 --> 00:34:24,020
So you'll see this next week.

798
00:34:24,020 --> 00:34:27,780
Poor William Barton Rogers
spends 30 years pursuing

799
00:34:27,780 --> 00:34:30,139
his dream and
finally achieves it.

800
00:34:30,139 --> 00:34:35,155
And then the whole country
blows up in his face basically.

801
00:34:35,155 --> 00:34:37,017
PROFESSOR: Not a good time.

802
00:34:37,017 --> 00:34:38,850
PROFESSOR: So the next
week too then we also

803
00:34:38,850 --> 00:34:42,457
focus on the founding
and the early years.

804
00:34:42,457 --> 00:34:44,790
You want to just walk through
this part of the syllabus?

805
00:34:44,790 --> 00:34:47,330
PROFESSOR: Yeah, the
third week will be mainly

806
00:34:47,330 --> 00:34:50,610
about William Barton Rogers and
his vision for the institute

807
00:34:50,610 --> 00:34:53,969
and how this place gets started.

808
00:34:53,969 --> 00:34:58,160
And in the essay you'll read
in this little book here,

809
00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:02,150
you'll see that I have some
things to say about the role

810
00:35:02,150 --> 00:35:06,540
the government played in
giving MIT the wherewithal

811
00:35:06,540 --> 00:35:08,040
to get started.

812
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:11,120
The state of Massachusetts
grants it land over in Boston.

813
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:14,690
And then it subvents it to the
tune of-- I don't know how many

814
00:35:14,690 --> 00:35:15,410
current dollars.

815
00:35:15,410 --> 00:35:17,410
But I think it's
around $300,000,

816
00:35:17,410 --> 00:35:19,930
a lot of money in those days.

817
00:35:19,930 --> 00:35:23,350
But without that money,
initial seed money

818
00:35:23,350 --> 00:35:27,540
basically, MIT would have had
an almost impossible time.

819
00:35:27,540 --> 00:35:30,870
Because once the
government of Massachusetts

820
00:35:30,870 --> 00:35:33,679
signed on to this place and
said, we'll give you a charter.

821
00:35:33,679 --> 00:35:34,720
We'll give you some land.

822
00:35:34,720 --> 00:35:36,860
And we'll give you some money.

823
00:35:36,860 --> 00:35:39,390
That gave a signal
to private donors

824
00:35:39,390 --> 00:35:42,790
that this place had a future.

825
00:35:42,790 --> 00:35:44,399
And that it was
worth investing in.

826
00:35:44,399 --> 00:35:46,440
And then, of course, there
were private donations

827
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:47,870
that were very important too.

828
00:35:47,870 --> 00:35:50,410
But it's that sort of
story I want to talk about

829
00:35:50,410 --> 00:35:53,640
is how did Rogers get
the place started?

830
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:57,430
And then who were the early
faculty that he recruited?

831
00:35:57,430 --> 00:36:00,160
Because it takes off in an
extremely interesting way

832
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:01,700
and in a way that
really comports

833
00:36:01,700 --> 00:36:04,470
nicely with what MIT
is all about today.

834
00:36:04,470 --> 00:36:09,370
The original ideals of MIT
in 1865 and those today

835
00:36:09,370 --> 00:36:12,860
are not that different
in my opinion.

836
00:36:12,860 --> 00:36:14,150
There are differences.

837
00:36:14,150 --> 00:36:18,400
But the Mens et Manus
theme in the seal

838
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:20,810
is a very interesting
and revealing way

839
00:36:20,810 --> 00:36:22,040
to think about this place.

840
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:24,575
It hasn't changed.

841
00:36:24,575 --> 00:36:33,510
Well, it's changed, but--
so that's the third week.

842
00:36:33,510 --> 00:36:38,400
And then the fourth week
is basically-- well,

843
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:39,620
it's about two things.

844
00:36:39,620 --> 00:36:42,190
One of you mentioned
earlier about Harvard

845
00:36:42,190 --> 00:36:45,120
trying to take over MIT.

846
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:47,330
And that's a fascinating story.

847
00:36:47,330 --> 00:36:49,870
Harvard makes that attempt
at least five times,

848
00:36:49,870 --> 00:36:54,090
if not six, starting in
1872 and continuing up

849
00:36:54,090 --> 00:36:57,480
until World War
I or thereabouts.

850
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:01,540
And each time-- well, it comes
very close once in the early

851
00:37:01,540 --> 00:37:02,550
1900's.

852
00:37:02,550 --> 00:37:04,200
There was actually
a time when you

853
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:06,650
could get a joint degree
from Harvard and MIT.

854
00:37:06,650 --> 00:37:10,040
And it was looking
very much like the two

855
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:11,260
places might merge.

856
00:37:11,260 --> 00:37:12,910
But it never happened.

857
00:37:12,910 --> 00:37:16,890
But that's an interesting
story that all MIT alums like

858
00:37:16,890 --> 00:37:20,840
to talk about and
students I suppose.

859
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:22,760
And then the other
part of it is how

860
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:25,670
this new campus, the so-called
campus, that we're on today,

861
00:37:25,670 --> 00:37:27,774
how did that come about?

862
00:37:27,774 --> 00:37:29,440
And of course, it
wouldn't have happened

863
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:31,410
without George
Eastman first of all.

864
00:37:31,410 --> 00:37:35,000
George Eastman put up an
amazing number of dollars

865
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:37,880
to build the main part
of the campus here.

866
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:40,300
The big dome
buildings and all that

867
00:37:40,300 --> 00:37:42,690
were all built
with Eastman money.

868
00:37:42,690 --> 00:37:47,160
And it's an interesting story
because I forget exactly how

869
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:48,980
much he granted MIT initially.

870
00:37:48,980 --> 00:37:52,390
But President Maclaurin,
who was the president of MIT

871
00:37:52,390 --> 00:37:54,420
at that time, kept
going back to him.

872
00:37:54,420 --> 00:37:56,990
George, could you put a
little more on the till here?

873
00:37:56,990 --> 00:38:01,470
And each time he'd write a
check, very, very generous.

874
00:38:01,470 --> 00:38:04,560
And he wasn't a MIT graduate.

875
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:06,550
I don't think he had
any MIT affiliation.

876
00:38:06,550 --> 00:38:08,750
But he employed
some MIT graduates.

877
00:38:08,750 --> 00:38:12,010
And I think that was
what-- he thought,

878
00:38:12,010 --> 00:38:13,990
they produce a good
product down there.

879
00:38:13,990 --> 00:38:15,630
I'm going to
support that school.

880
00:38:15,630 --> 00:38:18,240
And so that's basically
why he put up so much money

881
00:38:18,240 --> 00:38:19,130
to build a campus.

882
00:38:19,130 --> 00:38:21,610
But we'll have Mark
Jarzombek come in.

883
00:38:21,610 --> 00:38:26,200
He's written a book about the
physical facility or the campus

884
00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:27,790
itself, the building
of the campus.

885
00:38:27,790 --> 00:38:29,060
And he'll be the guest
speaker that day.

886
00:38:29,060 --> 00:38:30,893
And he has really
interesting things to say.

887
00:38:30,893 --> 00:38:32,772
He's written a book
about that topic.

888
00:38:32,772 --> 00:38:34,605
But they'll be some
good visuals that you'll

889
00:38:34,605 --> 00:38:36,215
be able to see in this too.

890
00:38:36,215 --> 00:38:37,590
PROFESSOR: And
that's really kind

891
00:38:37,590 --> 00:38:39,930
of the end of the
beginning for MIT.

892
00:38:39,930 --> 00:38:40,620
PROFESSOR: Yep.

893
00:38:40,620 --> 00:38:42,614
PROFESSOR: In that.

894
00:38:42,614 --> 00:38:44,030
And people at the
time, you'll see

895
00:38:44,030 --> 00:38:47,850
them say, up until that point
there was always money trouble.

896
00:38:47,850 --> 00:38:50,507
We never knew if we were going
to be around in five years.

897
00:38:50,507 --> 00:38:52,590
But once they move over
to this side of the campus

898
00:38:52,590 --> 00:38:54,894
and they build the
buildings, which

899
00:38:54,894 --> 00:38:56,560
puts them in a bit
of a hole for a while

900
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:59,782
financially, but really is
the time that MIT arrived.

901
00:38:59,782 --> 00:39:01,240
And they feel like
that it's really

902
00:39:01,240 --> 00:39:03,560
become something that's
going to be lasting,

903
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:06,890
only 50 years
after the founding.

904
00:39:09,720 --> 00:39:12,590
Then the next week we move
into what people sometimes

905
00:39:12,590 --> 00:39:18,600
call the progressive era,
the age of big business also.

906
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:20,810
And actually our guest
speaker is Ross Bassett,

907
00:39:20,810 --> 00:39:23,440
who was a colleague of
ours, not from here.

908
00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:25,920
He's written a very interesting
piece, which we'll read,

909
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:30,430
about students from India
coming to MIT in the 1930's.

910
00:39:30,430 --> 00:39:36,440
And there were only
about 20 or 30 students

911
00:39:36,440 --> 00:39:38,930
from India coming to MIT during
that whole 10 year period.

912
00:39:38,930 --> 00:39:43,360
But they were all from the 20
or 30 most prominent families

913
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:47,750
in India and went back
and did amazing things

914
00:39:47,750 --> 00:39:49,470
in their own countries as well.

915
00:39:49,470 --> 00:39:51,790
And that's the
sort of jumping off

916
00:39:51,790 --> 00:39:54,610
point for our conversation
about MIT's relationships

917
00:39:54,610 --> 00:39:57,610
with the rest of the world
and the positioning of MIT

918
00:39:57,610 --> 00:40:00,100
as a global university, which
is obviously a very big thing

919
00:40:00,100 --> 00:40:00,600
today.

920
00:40:04,694 --> 00:40:06,110
And again, there's
a lot of issues

921
00:40:06,110 --> 00:40:10,460
there during that
period about industry

922
00:40:10,460 --> 00:40:12,200
and the appropriate
role of industry.

923
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:14,210
And people are
feeling at the time

924
00:40:14,210 --> 00:40:16,390
that MIT has gotten much
too close to industry.

925
00:40:16,390 --> 00:40:19,460
And professors are behaving
more like consultants

926
00:40:19,460 --> 00:40:21,740
than they are like scientists.

927
00:40:21,740 --> 00:40:25,430
And that all sort of
turns around in 1930.

928
00:40:25,430 --> 00:40:27,380
We'll talk about
that in week six,

929
00:40:27,380 --> 00:40:31,860
both the relationships with
the military during World War I

930
00:40:31,860 --> 00:40:34,760
and the hiring of
Karl Compton in 1930,

931
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:37,330
who was the first
scientist-- I think

932
00:40:37,330 --> 00:40:40,830
he's the first scientist or the
first physical scientist who

933
00:40:40,830 --> 00:40:43,800
leads MIT and really
brings the institute back

934
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:47,100
toward a basic science
foundation, which is still

935
00:40:47,100 --> 00:40:51,180
something that you'll see
in your own educations,

936
00:40:51,180 --> 00:40:55,390
and sets it up for the
second World War in a way.

937
00:40:55,390 --> 00:40:57,700
So that's the middle of March.

938
00:40:57,700 --> 00:41:04,380
Then in week seven there's one
of the symposia for the 150th.

939
00:41:04,380 --> 00:41:06,200
There are six symposia
over the course

940
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:09,660
of the semester about
the 150th anniversary.

941
00:41:09,660 --> 00:41:13,870
And two or three
of them are meeting

942
00:41:13,870 --> 00:41:15,765
on a time that happens
to be a Monday.

943
00:41:15,765 --> 00:41:17,480
And I have to be
there all day anyway

944
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:20,970
because I'm introducing it
and sort of put it together.

945
00:41:20,970 --> 00:41:23,070
And what we'll do is
we'll have class time just

946
00:41:23,070 --> 00:41:24,930
be attend the symposium.

947
00:41:24,930 --> 00:41:27,450
Now, you don't have to
actually attend the three hours

948
00:41:27,450 --> 00:41:28,152
1:00 to 4:00.

949
00:41:28,152 --> 00:41:30,110
We happen to know that's
free in your schedule.

950
00:41:30,110 --> 00:41:31,650
So that's a good time to go.

951
00:41:31,650 --> 00:41:35,610
But any three hours over
the course of those two days

952
00:41:35,610 --> 00:41:37,560
will be fine.

953
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:40,810
And that one is about women
in science and engineering

954
00:41:40,810 --> 00:41:43,040
at MIT, which is a
pretty major part

955
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:44,530
of the history in
the last 10 years

956
00:41:44,530 --> 00:41:47,640
here starting just about
10 years ago with a very

957
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,910
famous report that came
out, which was, in a sense,

958
00:41:50,910 --> 00:41:53,169
nothing short of revolutionary.

959
00:41:53,169 --> 00:41:55,210
And actually, Lotte Bailyn,
who wrote the article

960
00:41:55,210 --> 00:41:58,940
in this book-- the Kaiser
book-- about that moment

961
00:41:58,940 --> 00:42:02,770
also was one of the key authors
of that women in science report

962
00:42:02,770 --> 00:42:06,500
and is one of the organizers
of that symposium.

963
00:42:06,500 --> 00:42:10,610
PROFESSOR: One other point
is to note now week six,

964
00:42:10,610 --> 00:42:12,420
we're dealing with
the '20s and '30s.

965
00:42:12,420 --> 00:42:15,340
And now in week
seven, we're kind

966
00:42:15,340 --> 00:42:17,180
of jumping chronological
a little bit

967
00:42:17,180 --> 00:42:18,740
to more current events.

968
00:42:18,740 --> 00:42:20,850
We have to do that
because the symposia is

969
00:42:20,850 --> 00:42:22,652
scheduled at this time.

970
00:42:22,652 --> 00:42:24,610
So there's going to be
some jumping around here

971
00:42:24,610 --> 00:42:26,442
that we can't avoid.

972
00:42:26,442 --> 00:42:29,720
But the themes are
sufficiently important that we

973
00:42:29,720 --> 00:42:31,860
think that going
to that symposia

974
00:42:31,860 --> 00:42:35,190
would be extremely
interesting and educational.

975
00:42:35,190 --> 00:42:36,910
PROFESSOR: Yeah,
on the one hand,

976
00:42:36,910 --> 00:42:38,640
we're roughly moving
chronologically

977
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:40,060
over the course of the term.

978
00:42:40,060 --> 00:42:43,210
But inevitably, even as we've
been doing already today,

979
00:42:43,210 --> 00:42:45,920
we're going to jump around
throughout the 150 year history

980
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:48,680
because things will come
up that are relevant today

981
00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:49,870
or things that were past.

982
00:42:49,870 --> 00:42:54,020
So the class is not organized
around the idea of suspense

983
00:42:54,020 --> 00:42:58,150
where wait and see what
happens in the 1980s

984
00:42:58,150 --> 00:42:59,870
that you'll only learn
in the last week.

985
00:42:59,870 --> 00:43:02,820
You're going to incorporate that
over the course of the term.

986
00:43:02,820 --> 00:43:06,540
Then on week eight, we're
going to actually meet

987
00:43:06,540 --> 00:43:08,400
at the MIT Museum
where they have

988
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:11,180
a special exhibition about MIT.

989
00:43:11,180 --> 00:43:14,530
Has anybody been to
the exhibition so far?

990
00:43:14,530 --> 00:43:17,570
So they put that together
for the 150th anniversary.

991
00:43:17,570 --> 00:43:21,180
It almost reads like a syllabus
for the class in some ways

992
00:43:21,180 --> 00:43:23,660
and also does a really good
job of tying these larger

993
00:43:23,660 --> 00:43:27,510
themes together about
different kinds of innovation

994
00:43:27,510 --> 00:43:30,477
and education and how those
two things tie together.

995
00:43:30,477 --> 00:43:33,060
And Debbie Douglas, who was the
curator who put that together,

996
00:43:33,060 --> 00:43:37,370
will give us our personal
tour through that exhibit.

997
00:43:37,370 --> 00:43:39,410
It's not actually
part of class time.

998
00:43:39,410 --> 00:43:41,710
But then I just put on
the syllabus April 10

999
00:43:41,710 --> 00:43:46,120
is the convocation, which
is the ceremonial center

1000
00:43:46,120 --> 00:43:47,710
of the 150th anniversary.

1001
00:43:47,710 --> 00:43:50,799
It's open to all faculty,
staff, and students and alums

1002
00:43:50,799 --> 00:43:52,840
and happens down at the
Boston convention center.

1003
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:55,470
So I certainly
encourage you all to go.

1004
00:43:55,470 --> 00:43:57,500
The governor of
Massachusetts will be there.

1005
00:43:57,500 --> 00:44:00,250
Quite a number of other high
profile speakers will be there.

1006
00:44:00,250 --> 00:44:02,270
And I'll show you
a little bit later

1007
00:44:02,270 --> 00:44:04,720
about the mid-century
convocation, which

1008
00:44:04,720 --> 00:44:09,080
happened in 1949, which
it's roughly modeled on.

1009
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:12,180
Then that very week,
actually it's the day after,

1010
00:44:12,180 --> 00:44:15,300
is a symposium on computation
and the transformation

1011
00:44:15,300 --> 00:44:17,277
of practically everything.

1012
00:44:17,277 --> 00:44:19,110
Again, that one happens
to meet on a Monday.

1013
00:44:19,110 --> 00:44:23,530
So class will just be attending
the symposium that day.

1014
00:44:23,530 --> 00:44:26,055
Excuse me.

1015
00:44:26,055 --> 00:44:27,930
Then we kind of pick up
our historical thread

1016
00:44:27,930 --> 00:44:31,090
again with World War
II, also really quite

1017
00:44:31,090 --> 00:44:32,890
a critical turning
point for the institute.

1018
00:44:32,890 --> 00:44:35,430
One that I've done a
lot of work on that

1019
00:44:35,430 --> 00:44:40,310
really begins to see
where we are today.

1020
00:44:44,030 --> 00:44:45,500
Then we'll go into the Cold War.

1021
00:44:49,410 --> 00:44:53,560
Again, one could teach an entire
class on MIT in the Cold War

1022
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:58,010
as one of our
colleagues, David Kaiser,

1023
00:44:58,010 --> 00:45:02,600
actually teaches a class on
science and the Cold War.

1024
00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:09,500
And then week 12,
we sort of bring it

1025
00:45:09,500 --> 00:45:12,130
up to the last 40 years or so.

1026
00:45:12,130 --> 00:45:15,010
And in a way, that's been
the hardest part of the class

1027
00:45:15,010 --> 00:45:17,470
to teach because it's
not yet history as much

1028
00:45:17,470 --> 00:45:19,580
as the rest of it is.

1029
00:45:19,580 --> 00:45:21,149
And yet, it's still
in the making.

1030
00:45:21,149 --> 00:45:23,190
And actually, the final
writing assignment really

1031
00:45:23,190 --> 00:45:25,430
is partly to ask
you guys to help

1032
00:45:25,430 --> 00:45:27,990
make that history of
the last 40 years or so.

1033
00:45:27,990 --> 00:45:29,490
Because there's a
lot of things that

1034
00:45:29,490 --> 00:45:31,448
haven't been written
about that we don't really

1035
00:45:31,448 --> 00:45:33,450
know that some research
into the archives

1036
00:45:33,450 --> 00:45:34,730
will really help us with.

1037
00:45:34,730 --> 00:45:36,940
Although this year, we
have the oral histories

1038
00:45:36,940 --> 00:45:38,190
that we didn't have last year.

1039
00:45:38,190 --> 00:45:39,689
And I'll show you
those in a moment.

1040
00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:44,950
So it's actually going to
be a pretty packed semester.

1041
00:45:44,950 --> 00:45:46,199
There's a lot going on.

1042
00:45:46,199 --> 00:45:46,990
It's a big history.

1043
00:45:46,990 --> 00:45:49,520
There's a lot that happened.

1044
00:45:49,520 --> 00:45:52,620
But we'll hope you'll get
some sense both for where

1045
00:45:52,620 --> 00:45:55,390
the place that you're
going to school at

1046
00:45:55,390 --> 00:45:59,340
came from, why you are expected
to take the classes that you're

1047
00:45:59,340 --> 00:46:03,900
expected to take-- the
GIRs in particular-- what

1048
00:46:03,900 --> 00:46:05,900
is the philosophy
behind the education

1049
00:46:05,900 --> 00:46:09,376
that you're getting, no
matter what major you're in.

1050
00:46:09,376 --> 00:46:12,220
How many people are
undergrads here by the way?

1051
00:46:12,220 --> 00:46:14,440
Any grad students?

1052
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,169
Couple of grad students.

1053
00:46:17,169 --> 00:46:18,710
And those are two
things-- we'll talk

1054
00:46:18,710 --> 00:46:21,030
about how those two
things, the undergrad

1055
00:46:21,030 --> 00:46:23,710
and the grad experience,
relate to each other.

1056
00:46:23,710 --> 00:46:25,210
And hopefully at
the end of the term

1057
00:46:25,210 --> 00:46:29,030
it will all make perfect
sense to all of you.

1058
00:46:29,030 --> 00:46:31,476
Any questions about the
syllabus or assignments or any

1059
00:46:31,476 --> 00:46:32,142
of those things?

1060
00:46:38,350 --> 00:46:44,440
One of the really interesting
things about the 150th

1061
00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:46,740
and about teaching the
class and writing this book

1062
00:46:46,740 --> 00:46:48,448
and a lot of the other
things we're doing

1063
00:46:48,448 --> 00:46:52,030
is that there isn't really
a fixed history of MIT.

1064
00:46:52,030 --> 00:46:56,730
And as any historian
will tell you,

1065
00:46:56,730 --> 00:46:59,610
what constitutes the history
of any subject changes

1066
00:46:59,610 --> 00:47:04,434
in each generation and in a
sense is constantly rewritten.

1067
00:47:04,434 --> 00:47:06,350
We like to think we don't
write too much of it

1068
00:47:06,350 --> 00:47:09,630
according to today's
values and points of view.

1069
00:47:09,630 --> 00:47:11,601
And at the same
time, we always know

1070
00:47:11,601 --> 00:47:13,350
that we see things
from our point of view.

1071
00:47:13,350 --> 00:47:14,960
And so you look back.

1072
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:17,770
And you see things that are
important in one generation

1073
00:47:17,770 --> 00:47:20,870
that were less important in
another generation and vice

1074
00:47:20,870 --> 00:47:22,160
versa.

1075
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:23,585
And what's been
really interesting

1076
00:47:23,585 --> 00:47:25,710
about the last couple years
and the next few months

1077
00:47:25,710 --> 00:47:29,390
is that we are again
rewriting the history of MIT.

1078
00:47:29,390 --> 00:47:31,590
This book is one
attempt to do that.

1079
00:47:31,590 --> 00:47:34,470
And one of the things
that came out of that

1080
00:47:34,470 --> 00:47:35,950
was this little
video that I want

1081
00:47:35,950 --> 00:47:52,240
to show you which, in a
way, really will anticipate

1082
00:47:52,240 --> 00:47:54,380
a lot of the themes for
the reading for next week.

1083
00:47:54,380 --> 00:47:57,420
It really gets us started on
how we think about these things.

1084
00:47:57,420 --> 00:47:59,880
And over the course
of the 150 you'll

1085
00:47:59,880 --> 00:48:05,600
see we put together about
five or six 12 minute videos

1086
00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:09,656
on different aspects
of the institute.

1087
00:48:09,656 --> 00:48:11,030
Some of them are
more historical.

1088
00:48:11,030 --> 00:48:12,446
Some of them are
more current day.

1089
00:48:12,446 --> 00:48:14,520
One of them focuses on
students and student life.

1090
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:17,420
One of them focuses
on entrepreneurship.

1091
00:48:17,420 --> 00:48:21,360
And this one focuses
on the founding of MIT.

1092
00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:24,950
And you'll see, maybe, a
familiar name or face in there.

1093
00:48:24,950 --> 00:48:27,200
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

1094
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:29,680
-Today's Massachusetts
Institute of Technology

1095
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:32,800
is a world class center
for teaching and research.

1096
00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:34,440
Faculty, students,
and researchers

1097
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:36,280
are united in their
goal to advance

1098
00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:39,650
the frontiers of knowledge and
solve contemporary real world

1099
00:48:39,650 --> 00:48:45,290
problems, following the vision
laid out for MIT 150 years ago.

1100
00:48:45,290 --> 00:48:46,860
But the place
itself has certainly

1101
00:48:46,860 --> 00:48:49,495
evolved and flourished
since those early days.

1102
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:56,330
It's hard to imagine how much
the scientific landscape has

1103
00:48:56,330 --> 00:48:59,370
changed from when founder
William Barton Rogers first

1104
00:48:59,370 --> 00:49:02,480
started thinking about a new
kind of polytechnic institute.

1105
00:49:11,710 --> 00:49:14,020
-William Barton Rogers
was born at the beginning

1106
00:49:14,020 --> 00:49:15,500
of the 19th century.

1107
00:49:15,500 --> 00:49:18,590
And that marks the beginning
of an extraordinary time

1108
00:49:18,590 --> 00:49:20,610
in US history.

1109
00:49:20,610 --> 00:49:22,920
It's really the
transition that we're

1110
00:49:22,920 --> 00:49:27,060
going to witness over a century
from an agrarian, rural country

1111
00:49:27,060 --> 00:49:30,950
into an urban and
industrial country.

1112
00:49:30,950 --> 00:49:33,520
-We're beginning to see the
emergence of large cities,

1113
00:49:33,520 --> 00:49:38,210
factories, railroads, canals,
all the early instruments

1114
00:49:38,210 --> 00:49:41,200
of big time industry
in the United States.

1115
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:43,240
-There's surveying involved.

1116
00:49:43,240 --> 00:49:45,010
There's mechanical engineering.

1117
00:49:45,010 --> 00:49:46,760
There's geology.

1118
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:48,550
There's all kinds of
civil engineering.

1119
00:49:48,550 --> 00:49:52,770
-The sense of possibility of
what this new technology would

1120
00:49:52,770 --> 00:49:56,180
mean for the country was
very much on Rogers' mind.

1121
00:50:00,900 --> 00:50:04,320
-William Barton Rogers had a
lifelong interest in education.

1122
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:08,340
And by 1835, he's a professor
at the University of Virginia.

1123
00:50:08,340 --> 00:50:10,920
He soon signs on to
lead a geological survey

1124
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:11,800
for the state.

1125
00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:14,990
Though he loves the project,
he has a big problem

1126
00:50:14,990 --> 00:50:17,110
finding qualified workers.

1127
00:50:17,110 --> 00:50:20,830
-Rogers' inability to hire
workers for his survey,

1128
00:50:20,830 --> 00:50:23,810
that combined scientific
knowledge and the ability

1129
00:50:23,810 --> 00:50:28,670
to use technical apparatus,
was a great problem

1130
00:50:28,670 --> 00:50:30,370
to his way of thinking.

1131
00:50:30,370 --> 00:50:33,790
He wasn't the only person
that needed an individual

1132
00:50:33,790 --> 00:50:34,810
with that skill.

1133
00:50:34,810 --> 00:50:37,840
The world was filled
with new industries.

1134
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:44,300
And they all needed people
that combined smarts and skill.

1135
00:50:44,300 --> 00:50:46,790
-Eventually, Rogers
decides to leave behind

1136
00:50:46,790 --> 00:50:48,880
the frustrations and
political turmoil

1137
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:51,840
he's encountered in
Virginia's slave society

1138
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:54,440
and moved north to the
vibrant city of Boston.

1139
00:50:54,440 --> 00:50:56,500
-Boston was one of the
leading commercial centers

1140
00:50:56,500 --> 00:50:57,260
of the country.

1141
00:50:57,260 --> 00:51:00,775
And the area surrounding
Boston was without question

1142
00:51:00,775 --> 00:51:04,900
the most developed industrially
of any state in the union.

1143
00:51:04,900 --> 00:51:07,240
-There probably was
not an American city

1144
00:51:07,240 --> 00:51:10,670
that had more of a need
for engineers than Boston.

1145
00:51:10,670 --> 00:51:12,840
The city itself was
being transformed

1146
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:14,430
by one of the
greatest engineering

1147
00:51:14,430 --> 00:51:18,120
projects of the 19th century,
the filling in of the back bay.

1148
00:51:18,120 --> 00:51:20,210
-And then you had
these reform movements,

1149
00:51:20,210 --> 00:51:23,400
temperance movements,
pacifist movements,

1150
00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:26,490
and of course the famous
anti-slavery abolitionist

1151
00:51:26,490 --> 00:51:27,080
movement.

1152
00:51:27,080 --> 00:51:28,580
This was the place.

1153
00:51:28,580 --> 00:51:32,190
Boston was so radical
in its reform spirit.

1154
00:51:32,190 --> 00:51:34,170
-The wealth generated
by all of this industry

1155
00:51:34,170 --> 00:51:37,700
Bostonians put into various
philanthropic enterprises,

1156
00:51:37,700 --> 00:51:41,900
endowing schools, hospitals,
libraries, museums,

1157
00:51:41,900 --> 00:51:45,390
various institutions which
benefit the broader community.

1158
00:51:45,390 --> 00:51:47,580
-Rogers writes in
his memoirs how much

1159
00:51:47,580 --> 00:51:51,420
he likes the so-called
enterprising spirit

1160
00:51:51,420 --> 00:51:55,390
and even uses the word knowledge
seeking spirit of this area.

1161
00:51:58,070 --> 00:52:01,140
-For decades, Rogers had been
talking with his brother Henry

1162
00:52:01,140 --> 00:52:04,570
about a new kind of
polytechnic institution.

1163
00:52:04,570 --> 00:52:06,600
-At the time, the
ideals of science

1164
00:52:06,600 --> 00:52:10,010
really focused on fundamental
principles somewhat

1165
00:52:10,010 --> 00:52:13,120
disconnected from the
real problems of industry

1166
00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:14,820
and the people who
worked in industry.

1167
00:52:14,820 --> 00:52:18,590
-They began thinking about
how to incorporate science

1168
00:52:18,590 --> 00:52:21,690
into what they referred
to as the useful arts.

1169
00:52:21,690 --> 00:52:23,920
Today we would call
that technology.

1170
00:52:23,920 --> 00:52:27,130
-It's a revolutionary
idea that someone

1171
00:52:27,130 --> 00:52:29,650
will go to school
to get training

1172
00:52:29,650 --> 00:52:33,830
to become an architect,
an engineer, a scientist.

1173
00:52:33,830 --> 00:52:37,180
These are typically
occupations that people

1174
00:52:37,180 --> 00:52:38,130
would learn by doing.

1175
00:52:38,130 --> 00:52:42,420
-This was experimental
from the get go.

1176
00:52:42,420 --> 00:52:46,960
Even the word technology
was new at that time.

1177
00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:49,580
-He wanted students who had
a grasp of human nature,

1178
00:52:49,580 --> 00:52:51,899
of basic sciences,
of mathematics far

1179
00:52:51,899 --> 00:52:54,190
beyond the requirements for
making this or that machine

1180
00:52:54,190 --> 00:52:54,690
work.

1181
00:52:54,690 --> 00:52:57,649
He wanted to train students who
would be able to kind of guide

1182
00:52:57,649 --> 00:52:59,190
the nation through
industrialization,

1183
00:52:59,190 --> 00:53:00,490
not just build the widgets.

1184
00:53:03,206 --> 00:53:04,830
-Different players
are coming together,

1185
00:53:04,830 --> 00:53:07,060
trying to bring a bunch of
different scientific and

1186
00:53:07,060 --> 00:53:09,010
practical institutions together.

1187
00:53:09,010 --> 00:53:12,640
And Rogers proves very skilled
at taking that set of people

1188
00:53:12,640 --> 00:53:16,090
and orienting their ideas
toward his proposal.

1189
00:53:16,090 --> 00:53:18,490
-They knew it was
going to be in Boston,

1190
00:53:18,490 --> 00:53:22,400
and the land in Back Bay
was the place to put it.

1191
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:25,340
So they were going to have
to convince the Massachusetts

1192
00:53:25,340 --> 00:53:28,700
state legislature
that not only was

1193
00:53:28,700 --> 00:53:32,630
the school worth establishing,
but that it was worth

1194
00:53:32,630 --> 00:53:35,150
designating a piece of land for.

1195
00:53:35,150 --> 00:53:37,750
-The proposal was brought to
the state of Massachusetts.

1196
00:53:37,750 --> 00:53:41,180
And the first step is to
essentially incorporate it

1197
00:53:41,180 --> 00:53:42,210
as a state corporation.

1198
00:53:42,210 --> 00:53:47,270
And that's what we celebrate on
the founding day of April 10,

1199
00:53:47,270 --> 00:53:50,840
1861, when the governor
finally signs the MIT charter.

1200
00:54:03,990 --> 00:54:10,020
-Just two days after MIT's
founding on April 10 in 1861,

1201
00:54:10,020 --> 00:54:14,900
the first shots are fired on
Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

1202
00:54:14,900 --> 00:54:17,270
And with the start
of the Civil War,

1203
00:54:17,270 --> 00:54:23,040
it meant that classes at MIT
could not start right away.

1204
00:54:23,040 --> 00:54:26,040
This proved fortuitous
for MIT, because it

1205
00:54:26,040 --> 00:54:30,490
allowed them the opportunity
to raise additional funds--

1206
00:54:30,490 --> 00:54:35,236
to acquire the land, to start
construction, to hire faculty.

1207
00:54:37,830 --> 00:54:41,375
-One can imagine that when
Rogers tried to raise money--

1208
00:54:41,375 --> 00:54:46,950
it's wartime, and energies are
being devoted to other things.

1209
00:54:46,950 --> 00:54:48,870
Yet on the other
hand, if we have

1210
00:54:48,870 --> 00:54:50,820
optimism about the
outcome of the war,

1211
00:54:50,820 --> 00:54:54,180
we can see the necessity
for young men and women

1212
00:54:54,180 --> 00:54:56,320
to become engineers
and scientists,

1213
00:54:56,320 --> 00:54:58,850
to be able to solve
these other problems.

1214
00:54:58,850 --> 00:55:02,520
-When the Morrill Act is
passed in Washington in 1862,

1215
00:55:02,520 --> 00:55:04,980
it grants every state
some land that then they

1216
00:55:04,980 --> 00:55:09,220
can either use or sell to found
an agricultural or mechanical

1217
00:55:09,220 --> 00:55:10,090
institution.

1218
00:55:10,090 --> 00:55:12,560
-Rogers and his
colleagues won support

1219
00:55:12,560 --> 00:55:15,780
from the state
legislature that a portion

1220
00:55:15,780 --> 00:55:18,040
of the funds from
the Land Grant Act

1221
00:55:18,040 --> 00:55:20,970
would be dedicated
to this new school,

1222
00:55:20,970 --> 00:55:24,990
assuming that they could raise
the other funds successfully.

1223
00:55:24,990 --> 00:55:29,000
And then they had to go
out, house by house, factory

1224
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:32,150
to factory, and convince
people one at a time

1225
00:55:32,150 --> 00:55:34,665
to donate funds to
support this enterprise.

1226
00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:44,570
-As the war is ending in 1865,
the Massachusetts Institute

1227
00:55:44,570 --> 00:55:46,555
of Technology holds
its first classes

1228
00:55:46,555 --> 00:55:50,195
in rented space in downtown
Boston's Mercantile Building

1229
00:55:50,195 --> 00:55:54,470
while constructing its own
buildings near Copley Square.

1230
00:55:54,470 --> 00:55:56,800
Rogers' vision for a
new kind of education,

1231
00:55:56,800 --> 00:55:59,130
with its emphasis on
hands on learning,

1232
00:55:59,130 --> 00:56:02,780
made it crucial to establish
cutting edge laboratories.

1233
00:56:02,780 --> 00:56:04,770
-Rogers had a very
strong reaction

1234
00:56:04,770 --> 00:56:06,810
against what he
considered rote learning.

1235
00:56:06,810 --> 00:56:09,640
And so from the beginning,
MIT was a great innovator

1236
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:11,640
in getting laboratory
work right down

1237
00:56:11,640 --> 00:56:13,440
to the earliest levels
of the curriculum.

1238
00:56:13,440 --> 00:56:14,950
Entry undergraduate
students would

1239
00:56:14,950 --> 00:56:17,220
be entitled to do a lot of
work in the laboratories

1240
00:56:17,220 --> 00:56:19,010
with their own hands, not
just seeing someone else

1241
00:56:19,010 --> 00:56:20,100
demonstrate some effect.

1242
00:56:20,100 --> 00:56:22,940
-Rogers needed
faculty who were going

1243
00:56:22,940 --> 00:56:27,245
to be willing to invent
a new kind of curriculum.

1244
00:56:27,245 --> 00:56:30,310
That they were going to
have to cobble together

1245
00:56:30,310 --> 00:56:34,070
for the first time ever
laboratory exercises.

1246
00:56:34,070 --> 00:56:39,530
-He allowed his professors to
basically experiment with it,

1247
00:56:39,530 --> 00:56:42,410
tinker with it, adjust
it, and build the program.

1248
00:56:42,410 --> 00:56:45,590
I think of Pickering in
physics, for example.

1249
00:56:45,590 --> 00:56:49,550
Professor Storer, who was one
of the early chemists at MIT.

1250
00:56:49,550 --> 00:56:51,680
And both of them
become very famous.

1251
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:53,810
And they're producing
textbooks to accompany

1252
00:56:53,810 --> 00:56:56,760
the lab oriented
educational process.

1253
00:56:56,760 --> 00:56:58,450
-You look at the
curriculum offered

1254
00:56:58,450 --> 00:57:02,970
in that very first set of
classes at MIT in 1865--

1255
00:57:02,970 --> 00:57:06,400
it looks a lot like what we
call the GIRs today, the General

1256
00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:09,310
Institute Requirements, that
still every freshman has

1257
00:57:09,310 --> 00:57:10,010
to take.

1258
00:57:10,010 --> 00:57:12,430
Mathematics,
chemistry, physics--

1259
00:57:12,430 --> 00:57:15,220
those are all required
at MIT from day one.

1260
00:57:15,220 --> 00:57:17,970
-There was an emphasis on
combining basic science

1261
00:57:17,970 --> 00:57:19,880
with applied things
in the field.

1262
00:57:19,880 --> 00:57:23,240
Students took field trips to
all kinds of working places,

1263
00:57:23,240 --> 00:57:25,870
where the technological
world was being built.

1264
00:57:25,870 --> 00:57:27,580
And Barton Rogers
wanted all that right

1265
00:57:27,580 --> 00:57:28,880
in the curriculum for
his undergraduates,

1266
00:57:28,880 --> 00:57:29,754
right from the start.

1267
00:57:37,570 --> 00:57:39,770
-As a young startup,
MIT had its share

1268
00:57:39,770 --> 00:57:43,470
of hurdles-- ongoing money
troubles, takeover attempts

1269
00:57:43,470 --> 00:57:45,210
by neighboring Harvard.

1270
00:57:45,210 --> 00:57:47,890
But with every passing year,
with every successful student

1271
00:57:47,890 --> 00:57:50,470
who went on to make his
or her mark in the world,

1272
00:57:50,470 --> 00:57:53,480
MIT's reputation grew,
and the school's standing

1273
00:57:53,480 --> 00:57:56,200
became more and more secure.

1274
00:57:56,200 --> 00:57:58,950
By 1894, President
Francis Amasa Walker

1275
00:57:58,950 --> 00:58:01,660
was able to declare
in his annual report

1276
00:58:01,660 --> 00:58:03,250
that the battle of
the new education

1277
00:58:03,250 --> 00:58:06,290
is won, proclaiming that
the influence of MIT

1278
00:58:06,290 --> 00:58:10,380
and its innovative ways are
now recognized far and wide.

1279
00:58:10,380 --> 00:58:12,640
-In the early years, the
MIT way of doing business,

1280
00:58:12,640 --> 00:58:16,170
with a great deal of emphasis
on hands on and doing things

1281
00:58:16,170 --> 00:58:19,430
in reality, contrasted
very substantially

1282
00:58:19,430 --> 00:58:22,060
with the more classically
oriented education.

1283
00:58:22,060 --> 00:58:25,270
But today, even for
those institutions

1284
00:58:25,270 --> 00:58:27,710
which are more classically
oriented liberal arts,

1285
00:58:27,710 --> 00:58:32,950
they have moved,
actually, towards MIT.

1286
00:58:32,950 --> 00:58:36,000
-By the time operations
moved across the Charles

1287
00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:39,020
to the brand new
Cambridge campus in 1916,

1288
00:58:39,020 --> 00:58:42,210
MIT's ongoing future
seemed assured.

1289
00:58:42,210 --> 00:58:45,710
Over the decades, the roadmap
Rogers laid out for his school

1290
00:58:45,710 --> 00:58:47,400
has proved flexible
enough to stay

1291
00:58:47,400 --> 00:58:50,030
true to his founding
ideals while incorporating

1292
00:58:50,030 --> 00:58:51,980
new fields as they emerge.

1293
00:58:51,980 --> 00:58:53,980
-There have been a
lot of continuities

1294
00:58:53,980 --> 00:58:55,900
in the history of
MIT, especially

1295
00:58:55,900 --> 00:58:58,390
around the type of
curriculum that students

1296
00:58:58,390 --> 00:59:01,000
are required to follow.

1297
00:59:01,000 --> 00:59:03,240
There's surely a greater
range choice today,

1298
00:59:03,240 --> 00:59:07,890
but the emphasis on combining
science with practice

1299
00:59:07,890 --> 00:59:11,645
is still an important
dimension of what

1300
00:59:11,645 --> 00:59:13,540
is happening around
the Institute today.

1301
00:59:13,540 --> 00:59:16,490
-That idea of mind and
hands-- mens et manus--

1302
00:59:16,490 --> 00:59:19,270
that goes right back to
the beginnings of MIT.

1303
00:59:19,270 --> 00:59:21,230
And it's coincident
with the idea

1304
00:59:21,230 --> 00:59:25,940
that learning takes place by
doing, as well just by seeing.

1305
00:59:25,940 --> 00:59:29,340
-MIT today shows
remarkable commitment

1306
00:59:29,340 --> 00:59:32,460
to the original vision
articulated by William Barton

1307
00:59:32,460 --> 00:59:37,430
Rogers of a place that solves
great problems, that educates

1308
00:59:37,430 --> 00:59:41,000
students who have
the capacity to be

1309
00:59:41,000 --> 00:59:43,060
independent in their thinking.

1310
00:59:43,060 --> 00:59:48,430
Those commitments are timeless,
and stretch across 150 years.

1311
00:59:57,596 --> 01:00:39,428
[MUSIC PLAYING]

1312
01:00:39,428 --> 01:00:41,450
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]

1313
01:00:41,450 --> 01:00:43,560
AUDIENCE: Is this part
of a bigger series,

1314
01:00:43,560 --> 01:00:45,250
or is this just one?

1315
01:00:45,250 --> 01:00:46,890
PROFESSOR: So as I
mentioned, there's

1316
01:00:46,890 --> 01:00:48,240
five or six of these coming out.

1317
01:00:48,240 --> 01:00:50,150
But it's not like the class.

1318
01:00:50,150 --> 01:00:51,880
They're not going
chronologically.

1319
01:00:51,880 --> 01:00:53,350
One is on entrepreneurship.

1320
01:00:53,350 --> 01:00:54,819
One is on the student body.

1321
01:00:54,819 --> 01:00:56,610
They'll each have a
little history in them,

1322
01:00:56,610 --> 01:00:58,870
but it's not a
consecutive series.

1323
01:00:58,870 --> 01:01:00,460
When they first
wanted to do this,

1324
01:01:00,460 --> 01:01:06,180
they said, well, we'll
do one from 1861 to 1916.

1325
01:01:06,180 --> 01:01:07,750
And we really pushed
them to go back

1326
01:01:07,750 --> 01:01:10,910
into that earlier period, and
the background of the founding,

1327
01:01:10,910 --> 01:01:12,240
and spend more time on that.

1328
01:01:12,240 --> 01:01:15,247
Because the context, which
we'll read about next week,

1329
01:01:15,247 --> 01:01:16,580
is so interesting and important.

1330
01:01:19,944 --> 01:01:22,568
AUDIENCE: I feel like there were
three people who kept talking,

1331
01:01:22,568 --> 01:01:23,776
and two of them were you two.

1332
01:01:23,776 --> 01:01:25,070
Who was the third one?

1333
01:01:25,070 --> 01:01:27,670
PROFESSOR: The third one-- the
woman was Debbie Douglas, who

1334
01:01:27,670 --> 01:01:29,710
is the curator at
the museum, who

1335
01:01:29,710 --> 01:01:31,620
we'll meet when
we go over there.

1336
01:01:31,620 --> 01:01:36,535
And we'll also read a chapter
of hers, I think, in the book.

1337
01:01:36,535 --> 01:01:39,800
AUDIENCE: How recently
did this come out?

1338
01:01:39,800 --> 01:01:41,540
PROFESSOR: Two months ago.

1339
01:01:41,540 --> 01:01:43,080
It was just released.

1340
01:01:43,080 --> 01:01:44,860
It was released on
the day that 150th

1341
01:01:44,860 --> 01:01:46,180
opened, which was January 7.

1342
01:01:46,180 --> 01:01:47,510
So it's brand new, basically.

1343
01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:52,197
Yeah, Michelle?

1344
01:01:52,197 --> 01:01:53,280
AUDIENCE: Who produced it?

1345
01:01:53,280 --> 01:01:55,790
PROFESSOR: Who produced it?

1346
01:01:55,790 --> 01:01:58,919
Larry Gallagher, who
heads AV, produced it.

1347
01:01:58,919 --> 01:02:00,710
And then it was directed
by a woman named--

1348
01:02:00,710 --> 01:02:01,835
PROFESSOR: Maggie Villiger.

1349
01:02:01,835 --> 01:02:03,500
PROFESSOR: Maggie Villiger.

1350
01:02:03,500 --> 01:02:06,250
Actually, one of the interesting
things that we're doing

1351
01:02:06,250 --> 01:02:08,550
is for each of five
of these videos,

1352
01:02:08,550 --> 01:02:10,860
they're directed by
a different person.

1353
01:02:10,860 --> 01:02:13,610
So it's not going to be a
consistent style across them.

1354
01:02:13,610 --> 01:02:16,750
They're all going to have a
slightly different style, which

1355
01:02:16,750 --> 01:02:20,220
should make it kind
of interesting.

1356
01:02:20,220 --> 01:02:22,344
AUDIENCE: At the beginning,
I saw a lot of pictures

1357
01:02:22,344 --> 01:02:26,490
with women in, for
instance, classrooms.

1358
01:02:26,490 --> 01:02:28,950
Is that--

1359
01:02:28,950 --> 01:02:30,305
PROFESSOR: Good question.

1360
01:02:30,305 --> 01:02:32,360
That's a good question.

1361
01:02:32,360 --> 01:02:38,930
MIT actually admitted women as
special students quite early.

1362
01:02:38,930 --> 01:02:41,510
Ellen Swallow Richards, who
was the first actual graduate,

1363
01:02:41,510 --> 01:02:43,640
also graduated quite early.

1364
01:02:43,640 --> 01:02:45,370
I think 1878 was the
year she graduated.

1365
01:02:45,370 --> 01:02:46,786
PROFESSOR: Somewhere
around there.

1366
01:02:46,786 --> 01:02:47,770
Somewhere in there.

1367
01:02:47,770 --> 01:02:49,186
PROFESSOR: My alma
mater, which is

1368
01:02:49,186 --> 01:02:54,150
Yale-- they started
admitting students in 1969.

1369
01:02:54,150 --> 01:02:56,892
But MIT was way
ahead of that curve.

1370
01:02:56,892 --> 01:02:58,350
Now, actually, it's
a good question

1371
01:02:58,350 --> 01:03:00,990
to ask Karen about when she
comes here in a little while.

1372
01:03:00,990 --> 01:03:04,490
Because she was a student here
in the early '70s, I think.

1373
01:03:04,490 --> 01:03:07,540
And it was very different
from what it is today.

1374
01:03:07,540 --> 01:03:11,590
It's not like there were--
and I think even-- I got here

1375
01:03:11,590 --> 01:03:15,460
in 1991, and I believe at
the undergraduate level,

1376
01:03:15,460 --> 01:03:19,610
it was still only
about 30% women.

1377
01:03:19,610 --> 01:03:23,850
And now it's more like
50% or 55% women, I think.

1378
01:03:23,850 --> 01:03:26,160
So it's come up a lot
even in that period.

1379
01:03:26,160 --> 01:03:29,040
So there have always
been women here,

1380
01:03:29,040 --> 01:03:31,750
but the proportions
that you know of today

1381
01:03:31,750 --> 01:03:34,820
are fairly recent.

1382
01:03:34,820 --> 01:03:37,110
But again, if you look at
the Ivy League schools,

1383
01:03:37,110 --> 01:03:39,330
they were in the
Stone Age compared

1384
01:03:39,330 --> 01:03:43,912
to MIT with how they
handled and treated women.

1385
01:03:43,912 --> 01:03:45,370
AUDIENCE: So you
guys in that video

1386
01:03:45,370 --> 01:03:48,380
are saying that MIT sort of
grew out of and contributed

1387
01:03:48,380 --> 01:03:50,790
to the Boston area at
the beginning, mostly.

1388
01:03:50,790 --> 01:03:53,980
When did it sort of hit
international and national

1389
01:03:53,980 --> 01:03:57,740
prominence and become like a
huge international technology

1390
01:03:57,740 --> 01:03:59,220
institution?

1391
01:03:59,220 --> 01:04:01,870
PROFESSOR: That's a really
good question, actually,

1392
01:04:01,870 --> 01:04:03,670
and one of the
things we'll look at

1393
01:04:03,670 --> 01:04:05,750
again and again all semester.

1394
01:04:05,750 --> 01:04:12,410
I think as the
video talks about,

1395
01:04:12,410 --> 01:04:15,590
New England was really
attractive to William Barton

1396
01:04:15,590 --> 01:04:16,700
Rogers.

1397
01:04:16,700 --> 01:04:19,410
There's every reason that
we could be celebrating

1398
01:04:19,410 --> 01:04:22,820
the Virginia Institute of
Technology's 150th anniversary,

1399
01:04:22,820 --> 01:04:23,440
but we're not.

1400
01:04:23,440 --> 01:04:27,360
He felt Virginia was
not the place for this.

1401
01:04:27,360 --> 01:04:29,265
That New England,
for reasons that Roe

1402
01:04:29,265 --> 01:04:33,500
will talk about next week,
was much more suited to it.

1403
01:04:33,500 --> 01:04:38,040
I would guess that already
by the late 19th century,

1404
01:04:38,040 --> 01:04:42,610
a lot of the MIT graduates
are going out west, and doing

1405
01:04:42,610 --> 01:04:44,970
the surveys and engineering
on the railroads

1406
01:04:44,970 --> 01:04:48,260
and dams and water supplies.

1407
01:04:48,260 --> 01:04:52,260
Fremont, one of the great
surveyor engineers of the west,

1408
01:04:52,260 --> 01:04:53,880
was an MIT graduate.

1409
01:04:53,880 --> 01:04:56,750
He was maybe even a faculty
member here, wasn't he?

1410
01:04:56,750 --> 01:04:57,750
PROFESSOR: John Fremont?

1411
01:04:57,750 --> 01:04:58,750
PROFESSOR: John Fremont.

1412
01:04:58,750 --> 01:05:01,090
PROFESSOR: No, I don't think so.

1413
01:05:01,090 --> 01:05:04,385
But I'm trying to remember who--
there is someone in that guise,

1414
01:05:04,385 --> 01:05:05,260
but it's not Fremont.

1415
01:05:08,450 --> 01:05:10,240
I think, with reference
to your question

1416
01:05:10,240 --> 01:05:12,430
about when does MIT
start to achieve

1417
01:05:12,430 --> 01:05:18,180
an international reputation,
probably the real reputation

1418
01:05:18,180 --> 01:05:20,720
comes during and
after World War II.

1419
01:05:20,720 --> 01:05:24,690
I mean, that's
when MIT is really

1420
01:05:24,690 --> 01:05:29,230
recognized as being a big
time place internationally.

1421
01:05:29,230 --> 01:05:33,590
There were surely
hints of recognition

1422
01:05:33,590 --> 01:05:35,880
in the late 19th
century, the 1890s.

1423
01:05:35,880 --> 01:05:41,510
When Francis Amasa Walker, after
whom the Walker building is

1424
01:05:41,510 --> 01:05:44,870
named, makes his
annual report-- I

1425
01:05:44,870 --> 01:05:47,920
think it's in 1894 or
thereabouts-- in which he says

1426
01:05:47,920 --> 01:05:51,630
the battle of the
new education is won,

1427
01:05:51,630 --> 01:05:54,070
clearly he was making
a reference to the fact

1428
01:05:54,070 --> 01:05:58,380
that MIT was being recognized
not only by American higher

1429
01:05:58,380 --> 01:06:00,669
educational institutions,
but by that time,

1430
01:06:00,669 --> 01:06:02,585
there were foreign
students beginning to come.

1431
01:06:02,585 --> 01:06:05,940
It's very small
numbers, but still.

1432
01:06:05,940 --> 01:06:08,740
So it's increasing,
but it really

1433
01:06:08,740 --> 01:06:15,284
doesn't hit the big
center spot until-- I

1434
01:06:15,284 --> 01:06:16,450
was going to say centerfold.

1435
01:06:16,450 --> 01:06:17,840
That's not quite the right word.

1436
01:06:17,840 --> 01:06:18,920
[LAUGHTER]

1437
01:06:18,920 --> 01:06:21,220
PROFESSOR: But
until, I would say,

1438
01:06:21,220 --> 01:06:22,990
World War II,
after World War II.

1439
01:06:22,990 --> 01:06:25,890
So much was happening here,
and it really became famous.

1440
01:06:25,890 --> 01:06:29,920
PROFESSOR: If you look in the
sciences, well into the 1930s,

1441
01:06:29,920 --> 01:06:32,650
if you're a bright
young physicist,

1442
01:06:32,650 --> 01:06:35,830
you're basically sent to
Germany to get your PhD.

1443
01:06:35,830 --> 01:06:38,600
And that changes,
obviously, during the course

1444
01:06:38,600 --> 01:06:41,680
of the second World
War, not least

1445
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:44,650
because the Germans kicked out
a lot of the good physicists

1446
01:06:44,650 --> 01:06:47,270
and they all came here.

1447
01:06:47,270 --> 01:06:52,434
And also in 1940, when Vannevar
Bush goes to Washington--

1448
01:06:52,434 --> 01:06:53,850
we'll talk about
this-- and really

1449
01:06:53,850 --> 01:06:57,330
founds the whole wartime
research establishment, which

1450
01:06:57,330 --> 01:07:00,810
includes the Manhattan Project,
includes the radiation lab,

1451
01:07:00,810 --> 01:07:03,970
includes the whole modern way
that the federal government

1452
01:07:03,970 --> 01:07:09,130
supports research, that's
when you see MIT people really

1453
01:07:09,130 --> 01:07:12,470
literally at the right
hand of the president.

1454
01:07:12,470 --> 01:07:15,740
I don't know that there
would be any senior MIT

1455
01:07:15,740 --> 01:07:19,990
person in a national political
role before about then.

1456
01:07:19,990 --> 01:07:23,080
We'll see over the course of the
term, but I don't think of one.

1457
01:07:23,080 --> 01:07:27,730
Whereas after that, the first
presidential science adviser

1458
01:07:27,730 --> 01:07:30,770
ever appointed is James
Killian, president of MIT.

1459
01:07:30,770 --> 01:07:33,390
The second one,
under John F Kennedy,

1460
01:07:33,390 --> 01:07:37,900
is Jerry Wiesner, who later
becomes president of MIT.

1461
01:07:37,900 --> 01:07:38,940
On and on and on.

1462
01:07:38,940 --> 01:07:41,670
And for the period
of the '50s and '60s,

1463
01:07:41,670 --> 01:07:45,720
the place really acquires
that national-- but also

1464
01:07:45,720 --> 01:07:52,120
during the '50s, MIT faculty,
much like they're doing today,

1465
01:07:52,120 --> 01:07:55,290
are off abroad founding
engineering schools

1466
01:07:55,290 --> 01:07:58,790
in the MIT model
all over the world.

1467
01:07:58,790 --> 01:08:02,980
I once went to a conference
where I was seated at dinner--

1468
01:08:02,980 --> 01:08:04,470
it was an oil
industry conference--

1469
01:08:04,470 --> 01:08:09,610
the guy I was next to was
the associate oil minister

1470
01:08:09,610 --> 01:08:13,337
for Iran, which is not the sort
of person that Americans meet

1471
01:08:13,337 --> 01:08:15,670
very often at conferences,
because there aren't too many

1472
01:08:15,670 --> 01:08:16,380
conferences where--

1473
01:08:16,380 --> 01:08:16,939
PROFESSOR: --you
have the Iranians.

1474
01:08:16,939 --> 01:08:18,821
PROFESSOR: And I was
sort of like, gee,

1475
01:08:18,821 --> 01:08:20,279
what is this going
to conversation.

1476
01:08:20,279 --> 01:08:23,109
And he said, oh, MIT.

1477
01:08:23,109 --> 01:08:25,840
My technical institute
in Tehran that I went to

1478
01:08:25,840 --> 01:08:28,936
was founded by MIT
faculty on the MIT model.

1479
01:08:28,936 --> 01:08:31,630
He had an enormous
respect for what

1480
01:08:31,630 --> 01:08:33,279
MIT represented in that country.

1481
01:08:33,279 --> 01:08:36,479
And that's true in a lot of
places in the Middle East,

1482
01:08:36,479 --> 01:08:39,620
a lot of so-called developing
nations during that period.

1483
01:08:39,620 --> 01:08:41,779
The Indian Institutes
of Technology--

1484
01:08:41,779 --> 01:08:44,819
it's not a coincidence,
IIT is what they're called.

1485
01:08:44,819 --> 01:08:45,859
There are many of them.

1486
01:08:45,859 --> 01:08:47,569
And so that's one of the ways.

1487
01:08:47,569 --> 01:08:50,779
And it's of course
happening today in Singapore

1488
01:08:50,779 --> 01:08:53,140
and other places in
Asia, particularly,

1489
01:08:53,140 --> 01:08:57,700
that new institutes
are being founded

1490
01:08:57,700 --> 01:08:59,420
with MIT's influence there.

1491
01:08:59,420 --> 01:09:02,500
AUDIENCE: So did we do Caltech?

1492
01:09:02,500 --> 01:09:05,653
PROFESSOR: Well,
Caltech-- anybody

1493
01:09:05,653 --> 01:09:07,819
know what it was called
before it was the California

1494
01:09:07,819 --> 01:09:09,235
Institute of
Technology, which has

1495
01:09:09,235 --> 01:09:12,210
some resonance to the
name of this institution?

1496
01:09:12,210 --> 01:09:14,790
It was called Throop College.

1497
01:09:14,790 --> 01:09:18,250
And in the '20s or
in the '30s-- I'm

1498
01:09:18,250 --> 01:09:21,069
forgetting exactly when--
they changed the name to it

1499
01:09:21,069 --> 01:09:22,890
California Institute
of Technology.

1500
01:09:22,890 --> 01:09:25,790
For many years, just the
word "tech" meant MIT.

1501
01:09:25,790 --> 01:09:27,960
And then gradually, all
these other institutes

1502
01:09:27,960 --> 01:09:31,010
formed, where they became
Georgia Tech or Caltech

1503
01:09:31,010 --> 01:09:33,290
or other places like that.

1504
01:09:33,290 --> 01:09:36,613
And then the word, the
"tech" term, became generic.

1505
01:09:36,613 --> 01:09:38,529
Most of you probably
don't refer to this place

1506
01:09:38,529 --> 01:09:39,800
as "Tech," do you?

1507
01:09:39,800 --> 01:09:41,359
When you're home
on break, you say,

1508
01:09:41,359 --> 01:09:42,979
I've got to go back
to Tech for this.

1509
01:09:42,979 --> 01:09:45,120
But for many years, that's
what people referred to it.

1510
01:09:45,120 --> 01:09:46,703
Or they referred to
it as "Technology"

1511
01:09:46,703 --> 01:09:48,899
in the 19th century.

1512
01:09:48,899 --> 01:09:51,670
So yes, Caltech and
Stanford, very much so.

1513
01:09:51,670 --> 01:09:53,580
The father of Silicon
Valley was a guy

1514
01:09:53,580 --> 01:09:57,200
named Frederick Terman, who got
his PhD here in Vannevar Bush's

1515
01:09:57,200 --> 01:10:00,690
lab in the late '20s and early
'30s, and then moved out west.

1516
01:10:00,690 --> 01:10:02,890
And Stanford, again,
had been founded--

1517
01:10:02,890 --> 01:10:05,280
he didn't found
Stanford-- but he really

1518
01:10:05,280 --> 01:10:07,850
built up the model
of a university

1519
01:10:07,850 --> 01:10:10,690
as the center of a kind
of industrial region,

1520
01:10:10,690 --> 01:10:13,450
with Hewlett and
Packard and many

1521
01:10:13,450 --> 01:10:15,020
of those other
early entrepreneurs.

1522
01:10:15,020 --> 01:10:19,459
And so there's a lot of that
kind of influence there.

1523
01:10:19,459 --> 01:10:21,750
You'll see this a lot in the
reading in the next couple

1524
01:10:21,750 --> 01:10:23,331
weeks-- useful arts.

1525
01:10:23,331 --> 01:10:25,080
That's a phrase that
Leo talked about that

1526
01:10:25,080 --> 01:10:26,190
comes up all the time.

1527
01:10:26,190 --> 01:10:29,310
It's in the MIT
charter, I believe.

1528
01:10:29,310 --> 01:10:33,930
And a useful way to think of
that is not art as in fine art,

1529
01:10:33,930 --> 01:10:36,630
like you'd go to the Museum
of Fine Arts to see today,

1530
01:10:36,630 --> 01:10:39,850
but art as in
artisanal, artisans--

1531
01:10:39,850 --> 01:10:45,750
you know, a brick layer,
a tile layer, a carpenter.

1532
01:10:45,750 --> 01:10:47,600
Those were sort of more
what people referred

1533
01:10:47,600 --> 01:10:51,310
to when they used the term
the "useful arts" then.

1534
01:10:51,310 --> 01:10:54,220
The steam engine and the
locomotive is a machine.

1535
01:10:54,220 --> 01:10:59,460
But a locomotive is
only a very small part

1536
01:10:59,460 --> 01:11:00,960
of what it takes
to make a railroad.

1537
01:11:00,960 --> 01:11:02,410
There's all this
civil engineering

1538
01:11:02,410 --> 01:11:05,470
that goes involved in
laying the tracks, and maybe

1539
01:11:05,470 --> 01:11:09,230
some surveying, and thinking
about it as a system.

1540
01:11:09,230 --> 01:11:11,650
And then railroads
and telegraphs

1541
01:11:11,650 --> 01:11:14,000
came up really
very much together.

1542
01:11:14,000 --> 01:11:16,480
All the early telegraphs went
along the railroad routes

1543
01:11:16,480 --> 01:11:17,520
in this country.

1544
01:11:17,520 --> 01:11:20,180
And so you almost can't even
think about the railroad

1545
01:11:20,180 --> 01:11:23,014
without thinking
about a telegraph.

1546
01:11:23,014 --> 01:11:24,430
There was even a
book out recently

1547
01:11:24,430 --> 01:11:27,890
called The Victorian Internet,
a kind of early information

1548
01:11:27,890 --> 01:11:29,090
network that ran around.

1549
01:11:32,030 --> 01:11:35,619
There's a famous
book by a guy named

1550
01:11:35,619 --> 01:11:37,410
Alfred Chandler at
Harvard Business School.

1551
01:11:37,410 --> 01:11:42,420
He talks about-- modern
management arose as actually

1552
01:11:42,420 --> 01:11:45,090
between the Worcester
to Albany railroad.

1553
01:11:45,090 --> 01:11:47,410
It was one of the first
long railroads in the world,

1554
01:11:47,410 --> 01:11:49,410
in Western Massachusetts
and New York state.

1555
01:11:49,410 --> 01:11:52,300
When that railroad was built,
it was longer than 60 miles.

1556
01:11:52,300 --> 01:11:56,830
And they started running
into each other, the trains.

1557
01:11:56,830 --> 01:11:59,090
And he said when you started
building railroads that

1558
01:11:59,090 --> 01:12:05,490
were bigger than 60 miles,
all of a sudden-- hi, Karen.

1559
01:12:05,490 --> 01:12:07,430
This is our speaker
for our next hour.

1560
01:12:07,430 --> 01:12:10,240
But we're talking a little bit
about the idea of technology.

1561
01:12:14,840 --> 01:12:17,346
When the railroad became
longer than 60 miles,

1562
01:12:17,346 --> 01:12:18,970
it needed a whole
new organization just

1563
01:12:18,970 --> 01:12:21,820
to coordinate who was
on the tracks when

1564
01:12:21,820 --> 01:12:24,100
and keep the trains from
running into each other.

1565
01:12:24,100 --> 01:12:26,740
And that's exactly the
same kind of period

1566
01:12:26,740 --> 01:12:28,630
about which Leo Marx
is talking about,

1567
01:12:28,630 --> 01:12:31,862
where suddenly you have
these people called managers.

1568
01:12:31,862 --> 01:12:34,035
There's nobody in the
world called a "manager"

1569
01:12:34,035 --> 01:12:37,520
before about 1840.

1570
01:12:37,520 --> 01:12:39,710
And even then, they
rise only gradually

1571
01:12:39,710 --> 01:12:41,300
over the course of
the 19th century.

1572
01:12:41,300 --> 01:12:42,510
You have these people
called "managers."

1573
01:12:42,510 --> 01:12:44,120
You have this
whole organization.

1574
01:12:44,120 --> 01:12:45,170
Yes, you have machines.

1575
01:12:45,170 --> 01:12:47,740
But a machine is not a
great way to describe it.

1576
01:12:47,740 --> 01:12:51,150
And sure enough, right
about then, if you look,

1577
01:12:51,150 --> 01:12:53,480
you have this word--
it's not actually

1578
01:12:53,480 --> 01:12:57,380
coined in 1829 by Jacob
Bigelow, but it is sort of

1579
01:12:57,380 --> 01:13:03,010
brought into a modern usage--
this word "technology."

1580
01:13:03,010 --> 01:13:08,960
And Leo really writes
about why was it

1581
01:13:08,960 --> 01:13:11,440
at this point in history you
needed a new word for this,

1582
01:13:11,440 --> 01:13:14,300
and what did this new
word come to stand for.

1583
01:13:14,300 --> 01:13:20,500
And even after 1829, the
word wasn't used very much

1584
01:13:20,500 --> 01:13:21,620
until the T in MIT.

1585
01:13:21,620 --> 01:13:24,950
It was really one of the first
significant uses of the word.

1586
01:13:24,950 --> 01:13:28,350
And even then, you wouldn't
see people using the word

1587
01:13:28,350 --> 01:13:30,550
technology like
they use it today

1588
01:13:30,550 --> 01:13:33,130
until after World
War II, really.

1589
01:13:33,130 --> 01:13:35,720
So you'd see a student
today in a lab might say,

1590
01:13:35,720 --> 01:13:39,360
I made a new technology
for handling micropayments

1591
01:13:39,360 --> 01:13:41,060
on the internet, or
something like that.

1592
01:13:41,060 --> 01:13:42,990
You'd never see that in 1940.

1593
01:13:42,990 --> 01:13:45,190
They would say, I
built an apparatus.

1594
01:13:45,190 --> 01:13:47,830
They used that
phrase a lot, even

1595
01:13:47,830 --> 01:13:49,860
though they were working at MIT.

1596
01:13:49,860 --> 01:13:51,605
Technology is an abstraction.

1597
01:13:51,605 --> 01:13:55,030
[INAUDIBLE] sort of [INAUDIBLE]
these different things.

1598
01:13:55,030 --> 01:14:00,390
And then when people
start using it as a noun

1599
01:14:00,390 --> 01:14:04,490
that actually has active agency
in the world, what is that?

1600
01:14:04,490 --> 01:14:05,874
It's a very strange way to talk.

1601
01:14:05,874 --> 01:14:08,600
And we won't talk about
it this way in the class.

1602
01:14:08,600 --> 01:14:11,650
Technology doesn't force
people to do things.

1603
01:14:11,650 --> 01:14:12,950
People build technologies.

1604
01:14:12,950 --> 01:14:16,300
People like you
build technologies.

1605
01:14:16,300 --> 01:14:17,840
People do things with machines.

1606
01:14:17,840 --> 01:14:22,730
People are influenced by
certain kinds of forces.

1607
01:14:22,730 --> 01:14:26,310
But technology itself is
this sort of invisible thing

1608
01:14:26,310 --> 01:14:28,820
that exists out
there, that doesn't

1609
01:14:28,820 --> 01:14:32,130
think, it doesn't have a mind,
it doesn't have an address,

1610
01:14:32,130 --> 01:14:34,100
doesn't pay taxes.

1611
01:14:34,100 --> 01:14:35,610
It doesn't order anybody around.

1612
01:14:38,770 --> 01:14:41,150
Now, interestingly,
in his conception

1613
01:14:41,150 --> 01:14:44,060
when he wrote this
paper, he had this idea

1614
01:14:44,060 --> 01:14:48,230
that technology conjures up an
idea of white men in lab coats

1615
01:14:48,230 --> 01:14:50,190
sort of sitting at lab benches.

1616
01:14:50,190 --> 01:14:55,320
More and more, personal
technologies-- PCs

1617
01:14:55,320 --> 01:14:59,890
and cellphones and things--
if you look in the technology

1618
01:14:59,890 --> 01:15:03,090
section of either the
bookstore or the newspaper,

1619
01:15:03,090 --> 01:15:05,180
they don't even talk about
airplanes and railroads

1620
01:15:05,180 --> 01:15:07,300
and ships and submarines.

1621
01:15:07,300 --> 01:15:11,260
They talk about basically
personal information technology

1622
01:15:11,260 --> 01:15:12,970
almost exclusively.

1623
01:15:12,970 --> 01:15:14,077
So that word has come.

1624
01:15:14,077 --> 01:15:15,660
And if you talk about
the tech sector,

1625
01:15:15,660 --> 01:15:18,319
they almost always
mean the companies

1626
01:15:18,319 --> 01:15:19,860
in Silicon Valley
and a few companies

1627
01:15:19,860 --> 01:15:23,714
around here who do
this kind of stuff.

1628
01:15:23,714 --> 01:15:25,880
I once had an experience--
it was about 10 years ago

1629
01:15:25,880 --> 01:15:28,450
already-- where Microsoft
gave a whole bunch of money

1630
01:15:28,450 --> 01:15:31,470
to MIT-- I think
they still do it,

1631
01:15:31,470 --> 01:15:34,010
it was what became what
is now called iCampus--

1632
01:15:34,010 --> 01:15:38,150
to do research projects in
technology and education.

1633
01:15:38,150 --> 01:15:40,130
And the guy from
Microsoft came and said,

1634
01:15:40,130 --> 01:15:42,380
OK, we'll give
$25 million to MIT

1635
01:15:42,380 --> 01:15:44,360
for experiments in
technology in education,

1636
01:15:44,360 --> 01:15:46,443
technology in education,
technology in education--

1637
01:15:46,443 --> 01:15:47,970
he kept repeating that phrase.

1638
01:15:47,970 --> 01:15:49,330
I said, oh, that's interesting.

1639
01:15:49,330 --> 01:15:52,040
And I raised my hand and I said,
what do you mean by technology?

1640
01:15:52,040 --> 01:15:57,124
Do you mean like helicopters
and submarines and ships?

1641
01:15:57,124 --> 01:15:59,290
And the guy said, oh, no,
no, I should clarify that.

1642
01:15:59,290 --> 01:16:01,440
What we mean is
personal computers

1643
01:16:01,440 --> 01:16:03,270
running Microsoft software.

1644
01:16:03,270 --> 01:16:03,971
Oh, OK.

1645
01:16:03,971 --> 01:16:05,346
As long as we're
clear on what we

1646
01:16:05,346 --> 01:16:07,210
mean by technology in education.

1647
01:16:07,210 --> 01:16:09,076
That's helpful.

1648
01:16:09,076 --> 01:16:10,450
That was sort of
an extreme case,

1649
01:16:10,450 --> 01:16:12,930
but you see that around a lot.

1650
01:16:12,930 --> 01:16:14,635
But even then, it's
still worth-- I

1651
01:16:14,635 --> 01:16:17,140
happen to be reading
a book by my colleague

1652
01:16:17,140 --> 01:16:19,224
Sherry Turkle, which
you may have seen.

1653
01:16:19,224 --> 01:16:20,390
It's been in the news a lot.

1654
01:16:20,390 --> 01:16:22,850
She was on Stephen
Colbert a couple weeks ago

1655
01:16:22,850 --> 01:16:27,000
talking about cellphone
use, and particularly

1656
01:16:27,000 --> 01:16:28,460
teenagers and technology.

1657
01:16:28,460 --> 01:16:30,470
It says, "Why do we expect
more from technology

1658
01:16:30,470 --> 01:16:32,701
and less from each other?"

1659
01:16:32,701 --> 01:16:35,200
She's a close colleague of mine
and of Leo Marx's, but she's

1660
01:16:35,200 --> 01:16:38,600
constantly using the word
technology makes us do this,

1661
01:16:38,600 --> 01:16:43,120
technology makes us do
that, when actually,

1662
01:16:43,120 --> 01:16:44,800
it's how we relate
to our machines

1663
01:16:44,800 --> 01:16:46,670
in a slightly different way.

1664
01:16:46,670 --> 01:16:50,390
So we sort of start out
the class with this piece.

1665
01:16:50,390 --> 01:16:53,670
And if you haven't finished it,
please do read the rest of it

1666
01:16:53,670 --> 01:16:56,777
between now and
next week, to give

1667
01:16:56,777 --> 01:16:58,360
a little bit of
historical perspective

1668
01:16:58,360 --> 01:16:59,310
on what is the thing.

1669
01:16:59,310 --> 01:17:01,000
We're at this Institute
of Technology--

1670
01:17:01,000 --> 01:17:03,820
what do we really mean by that?

1671
01:17:03,820 --> 01:17:07,790
And the word can become so big
that it can kind of encompass

1672
01:17:07,790 --> 01:17:09,155
anything and everything.

1673
01:17:09,155 --> 01:17:10,530
You can ask the
same, by the way,

1674
01:17:10,530 --> 01:17:11,850
about the word engineering.

1675
01:17:11,850 --> 01:17:13,380
How many people are
here engineering

1676
01:17:13,380 --> 01:17:15,160
majors of one kind or another?

1677
01:17:15,160 --> 01:17:16,530
So almost everybody.

1678
01:17:16,530 --> 01:17:17,410
Science majors?

1679
01:17:17,410 --> 01:17:18,430
Any?

1680
01:17:18,430 --> 01:17:19,130
One, two?

1681
01:17:22,620 --> 01:17:25,590
And actually, the
profession of engineering

1682
01:17:25,590 --> 01:17:28,900
has almost the exact same kind
of chronology as both the word

1683
01:17:28,900 --> 01:17:36,327
technology and the
history of MIT.

1684
01:17:36,327 --> 01:17:38,160
Does anybody know what
the first engineering

1685
01:17:38,160 --> 01:17:40,364
school in the United States was?

1686
01:17:40,364 --> 01:17:41,240
AUDIENCE: West Point.

1687
01:17:41,240 --> 01:17:42,690
PROFESSOR: Yeah, West Point.

1688
01:17:42,690 --> 01:17:43,190
1804.

1689
01:17:43,190 --> 01:17:44,680
It was not MIT.

1690
01:17:44,680 --> 01:17:48,080
Second one was Rensselaer
Polytechnic, RPI.

1691
01:17:48,080 --> 01:17:51,230
And MIT was pretty much the
third one, but almost 50 years

1692
01:17:51,230 --> 01:17:55,280
later-- almost 60 years
later from West Point.

1693
01:17:55,280 --> 01:17:57,840
So engineering as
we know it today

1694
01:17:57,840 --> 01:18:01,820
has its origins in what today
we call civil engineering,

1695
01:18:01,820 --> 01:18:04,180
but actually was really
called military engineering.

1696
01:18:04,180 --> 01:18:06,989
And all engineering
was basically--

1697
01:18:06,989 --> 01:18:08,780
up until the beginning
of the 19th century,

1698
01:18:08,780 --> 01:18:12,650
all engineering was
civil engineering,

1699
01:18:12,650 --> 01:18:15,360
which meant roads,
bridges, fortifications,

1700
01:18:15,360 --> 01:18:18,280
a little bit of artillery work.

1701
01:18:18,280 --> 01:18:21,790
And it's only in the course
of the mid 19th century

1702
01:18:21,790 --> 01:18:25,370
that you get-- in fact, the
profession, the discipline

1703
01:18:25,370 --> 01:18:31,220
of mechanical engineering, is a
post Civil War thing, organized

1704
01:18:31,220 --> 01:18:33,910
around steam engines
and steam engineering.

1705
01:18:33,910 --> 01:18:36,650
In fact, the MIT department
of mechanical engineering,

1706
01:18:36,650 --> 01:18:39,460
as like many other departments
of mechanical engineering,

1707
01:18:39,460 --> 01:18:41,540
is formed by Navy
steam engineers

1708
01:18:41,540 --> 01:18:45,660
who come out of
the Civil War Navy.

1709
01:18:45,660 --> 01:18:49,450
Electrical engineering
is even later.

1710
01:18:49,450 --> 01:18:51,880
And all the other
kinds of engineering

1711
01:18:51,880 --> 01:18:53,540
are even later after that.

1712
01:18:53,540 --> 01:18:57,750
So you're all familiar with
the course number story at MIT,

1713
01:18:57,750 --> 01:18:58,560
right?

1714
01:18:58,560 --> 01:19:02,600
That the course
numbers are basically

1715
01:19:02,600 --> 01:19:05,250
the chronology on
which they were added.

1716
01:19:05,250 --> 01:19:07,070
So course one is what?

1717
01:19:07,070 --> 01:19:07,880
AUDIENCE: Civil.

1718
01:19:07,880 --> 01:19:08,670
PROFESSOR: Civil.

1719
01:19:08,670 --> 01:19:10,660
The environmental
is added later.

1720
01:19:10,660 --> 01:19:12,070
Actually pretty
recently, I think

1721
01:19:12,070 --> 01:19:14,220
within the last 10 or 15 years.

1722
01:19:14,220 --> 01:19:17,260
Course two, Mechanical
Engineering, comes next.

1723
01:19:17,260 --> 01:19:20,360
Course three, Material
Science, anybody

1724
01:19:20,360 --> 01:19:24,610
know when the phrase
"material science" comes from?

1725
01:19:24,610 --> 01:19:27,480
That's a 1960s,
'70s, '80s phrase.

1726
01:19:27,480 --> 01:19:28,550
What was it before that?

1727
01:19:28,550 --> 01:19:29,820
AUDIENCE: Didn't it
used to be mining?

1728
01:19:29,820 --> 01:19:31,030
PROFESSOR: Mining
and Metallurgy.

1729
01:19:31,030 --> 01:19:32,600
So that's a much
more traditional way

1730
01:19:32,600 --> 01:19:35,110
of thinking about that kind
of engineering, very, very

1731
01:19:35,110 --> 01:19:40,160
old way of kind of engineering,
straight of alchemy, really.

1732
01:19:40,160 --> 01:19:40,750
What's four?

1733
01:19:40,750 --> 01:19:41,708
AUDIENCE: Architecture.

1734
01:19:41,708 --> 01:19:45,440
PROFESSOR: Architecture,
also very early.

1735
01:19:45,440 --> 01:19:50,040
Five is Chemistry,
also very early.

1736
01:19:50,040 --> 01:19:52,980
Electrical Engineering, getting
to be a little bit later.

1737
01:19:52,980 --> 01:19:55,420
That's an effect of the 1880s.

1738
01:19:55,420 --> 01:19:56,610
And then, on up from there.

1739
01:19:56,610 --> 01:19:58,315
AUDIENCE: Did course six used
to be something different?

1740
01:19:58,315 --> 01:19:59,640
PROFESSOR: I think
course six was always

1741
01:19:59,640 --> 01:20:00,598
Electrical Engineering.

1742
01:20:03,390 --> 01:20:06,080
I'm not exactly sure when the
department itself was founded.

1743
01:20:06,080 --> 01:20:10,790
It was probably around
the turn of the century.

1744
01:20:10,790 --> 01:20:15,200
But certainly, mechanical
engineering is much older.

1745
01:20:15,200 --> 01:20:21,400
And mechanical engineering
exists more or less prior

1746
01:20:21,400 --> 01:20:23,010
to the science that supports it.

1747
01:20:23,010 --> 01:20:25,900
In fact, most of the fundamental
science in thermodynamics

1748
01:20:25,900 --> 01:20:29,690
is done because of problems
raised by steam engines.

1749
01:20:29,690 --> 01:20:32,457
So it's not like the physicists
worked out the thermo

1750
01:20:32,457 --> 01:20:34,040
and then they built
the steam engines.

1751
01:20:34,040 --> 01:20:35,780
It's exactly the
other way around.

1752
01:20:35,780 --> 01:20:37,150
Engineers built steam engines.

1753
01:20:37,150 --> 01:20:38,830
And then, that raised
problems of thermo

1754
01:20:38,830 --> 01:20:40,840
that people needed to solve.

1755
01:20:40,840 --> 01:20:43,670
Whereas, electrical
engineering is much more--

1756
01:20:43,670 --> 01:20:45,600
you almost can't have
it without the physics.

1757
01:20:45,600 --> 01:20:48,710
And it's much more
intimately tied with science,

1758
01:20:48,710 --> 01:20:50,170
from its very foundings.

1759
01:20:50,170 --> 01:20:52,960
So it's quite, in a way,
a much more different kind

1760
01:20:52,960 --> 01:20:55,350
of engineering.

1761
01:20:55,350 --> 01:20:58,565
Then you have AeroAstro as
Course 16, much later on.

1762
01:20:58,565 --> 01:21:00,231
AUDIENCE: How can
Electrical Engineering

1763
01:21:00,231 --> 01:21:01,632
come before Biology?

1764
01:21:01,632 --> 01:21:02,475
PROFESSOR: Sorry?

1765
01:21:02,475 --> 01:21:03,800
AUDIENCE: Or Physics?

1766
01:21:03,800 --> 01:21:05,800
AUDIENCE: Yeah, why would
Electrical Engineering

1767
01:21:05,800 --> 01:21:06,650
come before Biology?

1768
01:21:06,650 --> 01:21:08,066
PROFESSOR: That's
a good question.

1769
01:21:08,066 --> 01:21:14,811
And I think, A,
there were things

1770
01:21:14,811 --> 01:21:16,810
that were taught at MIT
that weren't necessarily

1771
01:21:16,810 --> 01:21:21,870
departments, so
various things at work.

1772
01:21:21,870 --> 01:21:23,900
And we'll see, as we look
in the next few weeks,

1773
01:21:23,900 --> 01:21:26,780
the early MIT is
a teaching school.

1774
01:21:26,780 --> 01:21:28,780
It doesn't really become
a research institution

1775
01:21:28,780 --> 01:21:32,290
until rather later,
in a fundamental way.

1776
01:21:32,290 --> 01:21:35,760
And so biology was
the sort of thing--

1777
01:21:35,760 --> 01:21:39,580
and we'll see this-- that
they did at Harvard because it

1778
01:21:39,580 --> 01:21:41,750
had very little practical
application, compared

1779
01:21:41,750 --> 01:21:43,600
to other things.

1780
01:21:43,600 --> 01:21:47,960
And Louis Agassiz, who was
the great Harvard biologist,

1781
01:21:47,960 --> 01:21:51,295
got into a very public a war
with Charles Elliott, who

1782
01:21:51,295 --> 01:21:54,010
was the president of MIT,
over the issue of evolution.

1783
01:21:54,010 --> 01:21:58,240
And Physics-- you would think--
would be an earlier department.

1784
01:21:58,240 --> 01:22:00,300
And I'm not exactly
sure why that one

1785
01:22:00,300 --> 01:22:02,632
was founded a little bit later.

1786
01:22:02,632 --> 01:22:03,670
That's a good question.

1787
01:22:03,670 --> 01:22:04,170
Yeah.

1788
01:22:04,170 --> 01:22:08,004
AUDIENCE: What about those
that do not have numbers?

1789
01:22:08,004 --> 01:22:09,670
PROFESSOR: Those are
mostly added later.

1790
01:22:09,670 --> 01:22:15,100
Like my course, STS,
comes from the '70s.

1791
01:22:15,100 --> 01:22:17,010
And I think also, in
general, you probably

1792
01:22:17,010 --> 01:22:20,830
can find that
around the 15s, 16s,

1793
01:22:20,830 --> 01:22:22,800
the numbering system
starts to break down.

1794
01:22:22,800 --> 01:22:25,640
And it doesn't follow as
much of a rational pattern.

1795
01:22:25,640 --> 01:22:27,570
Like, Course 21 is Humanities.

1796
01:22:27,570 --> 01:22:29,840
Humanities have been around
for a long time at MIT.

1797
01:22:29,840 --> 01:22:32,540
But they weren't incorporated
into a particular course,

1798
01:22:32,540 --> 01:22:34,260
until after World War II.

1799
01:22:34,260 --> 01:22:36,260
And again, then, some
of the earlier ones,

1800
01:22:36,260 --> 01:22:39,120
like Mining and
Metallurgy, is transformed

1801
01:22:39,120 --> 01:22:41,410
into Material Science and stuff.

1802
01:22:41,410 --> 01:22:45,720
So past the first
15 or so, I think

1803
01:22:45,720 --> 01:22:47,832
the chronology is a
little more complicated.

1804
01:22:47,832 --> 01:22:49,984
AUDIENCE: Isn't course
nine fairly new,

1805
01:22:49,984 --> 01:22:51,150
Brain and Cognitive Science?

1806
01:22:51,150 --> 01:22:55,160
PROFESSOR: It is, but it
was Psychology before.

1807
01:22:55,160 --> 01:22:59,090
So psychology has a
kind of older pedigree.

1808
01:23:01,610 --> 01:23:04,120
And then, there were other
courses that were cancelled,

1809
01:23:04,120 --> 01:23:08,220
like Applied Biology, famously
so, not that long ago.

1810
01:23:14,220 --> 01:23:16,480
Another interesting way
to look at the history.

1811
01:23:16,480 --> 01:23:20,490
So now, I would
like to introduce

1812
01:23:20,490 --> 01:23:22,650
my friend and colleague,
Karen Arenson.

1813
01:23:22,650 --> 01:23:26,410
And maybe, as I do, I'll call
up the page of the oral history.

1814
01:23:26,410 --> 01:23:34,960
So people get a sense for what
the actual accomplishment looks

1815
01:23:34,960 --> 01:23:35,720
like.

1816
01:23:35,720 --> 01:23:38,030
And as I did mention
before, Karen

1817
01:23:38,030 --> 01:23:41,600
is a former member of the
MIT Corporation, an alum,

1818
01:23:41,600 --> 01:23:43,736
from I'm not quite
sure which year.

1819
01:23:43,736 --> 01:23:44,670
KAREN ARENSON: '70.

1820
01:23:44,670 --> 01:23:46,260
PROFESSOR: '70.

1821
01:23:46,260 --> 01:23:49,510
So she has a lot of interesting
perspective on women at MIT,

1822
01:23:49,510 --> 01:23:51,920
which we talked about
a little bit before,

1823
01:23:51,920 --> 01:23:54,914
as well as a former
higher education

1824
01:23:54,914 --> 01:23:56,330
journalist for The
New York Times.

1825
01:23:56,330 --> 01:24:00,210
So she's seen what MIT looks
like in the context of a larger

1826
01:24:00,210 --> 01:24:08,450
picture, as well as a member
the Council of the Arts,

1827
01:24:08,450 --> 01:24:09,220
here at MIT.

1828
01:24:09,220 --> 01:24:16,860
And in all of those
sort of capacities,

1829
01:24:16,860 --> 01:24:18,960
we did this oral
history project.

1830
01:24:18,960 --> 01:24:21,840
And she conducted not
all but a large fraction

1831
01:24:21,840 --> 01:24:22,840
of these oral histories.

1832
01:24:22,840 --> 01:24:24,950
So she's, at the
moment, probably

1833
01:24:24,950 --> 01:24:27,840
heard more about the last
40 years of MIT's history

1834
01:24:27,840 --> 01:24:31,360
than almost anybody
and maybe will

1835
01:24:31,360 --> 01:24:34,160
incorporate all those things
in what she has to say.

1836
01:24:34,160 --> 01:24:36,560
But while she's
starting to talk,

1837
01:24:36,560 --> 01:24:39,736
let me call up the
oral history page

1838
01:24:39,736 --> 01:24:41,110
because it's worth
having a look.

1839
01:24:41,110 --> 01:24:42,870
And it's this
incredibly rich thing.

1840
01:24:42,870 --> 01:24:45,245
KAREN ARENSON: Have any of
you looked at the oral history

1841
01:24:45,245 --> 01:24:46,301
thing?

1842
01:24:46,301 --> 01:24:50,040
I've just begun to.

1843
01:24:50,040 --> 01:24:54,760
Hi, I was in your seat, not
in this room, many years ago.

1844
01:24:54,760 --> 01:24:58,008
And when I was walking here
and passed near 26-100,

1845
01:24:58,008 --> 01:25:00,808
I thought, 801, 802.

1846
01:25:00,808 --> 01:25:03,605
They existed back
when I was a student.

1847
01:25:07,420 --> 01:25:10,670
I've been asked to talk
today a little about who I am

1848
01:25:10,670 --> 01:25:15,790
and where I came from, a little
about the Oral History Project,

1849
01:25:15,790 --> 01:25:21,240
specifically, and then a little
about what I learned from it.

1850
01:25:21,240 --> 01:25:24,840
And that's been the
challenging part.

1851
01:25:24,840 --> 01:25:29,920
I fell in love with MIT when I
first visited it as an admitted

1852
01:25:29,920 --> 01:25:33,250
freshman, back in
1966 and discovered

1853
01:25:33,250 --> 01:25:36,690
that other people
talked my language.

1854
01:25:36,690 --> 01:25:40,490
They thought quantitatively
and analytically.

1855
01:25:40,490 --> 01:25:42,465
And they liked to
solve problems.

1856
01:25:42,465 --> 01:25:45,880
And I think that's
still true today.

1857
01:25:45,880 --> 01:25:49,620
And although many of
them were brilliant,

1858
01:25:49,620 --> 01:25:53,220
they also turned out to be
nice people and friendly

1859
01:25:53,220 --> 01:25:56,260
and unpretentious--
I think a distinction

1860
01:25:56,260 --> 01:26:00,300
from another place in
Cambridge-- and helpful.

1861
01:26:00,300 --> 01:26:03,500
And I've never fallen out
of love with the Institute.

1862
01:26:03,500 --> 01:26:05,720
And the Oral History
Project gave me

1863
01:26:05,720 --> 01:26:09,870
a chance to explore areas
that I was familiar with,

1864
01:26:09,870 --> 01:26:13,320
like economics and the
Alumni Association,

1865
01:26:13,320 --> 01:26:17,440
and also areas that I knew
nothing about, like STS, which

1866
01:26:17,440 --> 01:26:21,240
didn't exist when I was
here; Biotechnology, which

1867
01:26:21,240 --> 01:26:27,820
didn't exist anywhere;
Engineering Systems.

1868
01:26:27,820 --> 01:26:31,710
I applied to MIT
because I liked math.

1869
01:26:31,710 --> 01:26:33,930
And I wanted to focus
on social problems.

1870
01:26:33,930 --> 01:26:36,540
I didn't come here thinking
I would major in math.

1871
01:26:36,540 --> 01:26:37,900
I thought Economics.

1872
01:26:37,900 --> 01:26:40,560
And this place had the best
Economics Department then.

1873
01:26:40,560 --> 01:26:42,790
It still does.

1874
01:26:42,790 --> 01:26:46,670
And I majored in Economics
and in student government

1875
01:26:46,670 --> 01:26:48,140
and in the newspaper.

1876
01:26:48,140 --> 01:26:51,530
And lived at The
Tech an awful lot.

1877
01:26:51,530 --> 01:26:55,300
I was one of 50 women
in a class to 900.

1878
01:26:55,300 --> 01:26:59,450
They had built McCormick
Hall a few years before.

1879
01:26:59,450 --> 01:27:02,130
And all of a sudden, the
numbers shot up to 50

1880
01:27:02,130 --> 01:27:06,310
per class, that had been
less than 20 before that.

1881
01:27:06,310 --> 01:27:10,150
And by the time I graduated,
after all the Vietnam turmoil

1882
01:27:10,150 --> 01:27:13,150
and society turning
inside out, they

1883
01:27:13,150 --> 01:27:15,970
decided to make the
other dorms co-ed.

1884
01:27:15,970 --> 01:27:18,500
And all of a sudden, there
was more room for women.

1885
01:27:18,500 --> 01:27:22,340
The number of women shot
up, gradually, into the 30%.

1886
01:27:22,340 --> 01:27:26,040
You're about mid
40s now, in terms

1887
01:27:26,040 --> 01:27:27,415
of undergraduate population.

1888
01:27:30,180 --> 01:27:32,970
I went from the
Economics Department

1889
01:27:32,970 --> 01:27:36,310
here to the Public
Policy School at Harvard

1890
01:27:36,310 --> 01:27:38,490
and did a master's degree.

1891
01:27:38,490 --> 01:27:40,380
And the one thing I
learned was that I

1892
01:27:40,380 --> 01:27:42,690
didn't want to
sit behind a desk,

1893
01:27:42,690 --> 01:27:44,570
and maybe I should
be a journalist.

1894
01:27:44,570 --> 01:27:46,500
I had lived at The
Tech all those years

1895
01:27:46,500 --> 01:27:50,220
and at my student newspaper
in the high school.

1896
01:27:50,220 --> 01:27:52,800
And it took me about
a year to land a job.

1897
01:27:52,800 --> 01:27:54,990
But I landed it
at Business Week.

1898
01:27:54,990 --> 01:27:56,060
I was lucky.

1899
01:27:56,060 --> 01:27:58,650
I spent five years
there and then moved

1900
01:27:58,650 --> 01:28:00,240
to The New York Times.

1901
01:28:00,240 --> 01:28:02,480
Business journalism was
becoming more important.

1902
01:28:05,140 --> 01:28:06,450
I love numbers.

1903
01:28:06,450 --> 01:28:10,090
And it was a wonderful
career for me.

1904
01:28:10,090 --> 01:28:13,330
Along the way, I remained
involved with MIT

1905
01:28:13,330 --> 01:28:15,820
because I like the people.

1906
01:28:15,820 --> 01:28:19,100
And as Professor
Mindell said, I served

1907
01:28:19,100 --> 01:28:22,580
on the corporation and
the executive committee

1908
01:28:22,580 --> 01:28:25,010
and discovered that
businessmen, who made up

1909
01:28:25,010 --> 01:28:26,940
most of the corporation,
are actually

1910
01:28:26,940 --> 01:28:28,370
pretty interesting people.

1911
01:28:28,370 --> 01:28:29,760
And they had other lives.

1912
01:28:29,760 --> 01:28:35,550
And they weren't the kind of bad
people we thought in the 1960s,

1913
01:28:35,550 --> 01:28:36,820
when all business was bad.

1914
01:28:36,820 --> 01:28:40,870
And nobody wanted to
go to business school.

1915
01:28:40,870 --> 01:28:44,430
Because of my involvement with
MIT, The Times, at some point,

1916
01:28:44,430 --> 01:28:47,780
they asked me to start writing
about higher education.

1917
01:28:47,780 --> 01:28:49,380
That was an interesting topic.

1918
01:28:49,380 --> 01:28:52,440
The only trouble was I had
to cut my ties with MIT.

1919
01:28:52,440 --> 01:28:54,260
Because it would
have been perceived

1920
01:28:54,260 --> 01:28:55,970
as a conflict of
interest or might

1921
01:28:55,970 --> 01:28:58,350
have been a conflict
of interest.

1922
01:28:58,350 --> 01:29:04,160
And so I had a period of about
13 years, when I pulled back.

1923
01:29:04,160 --> 01:29:09,350
And I took a buy-out
from The Times in 2008

1924
01:29:09,350 --> 01:29:11,870
and began to reengage.

1925
01:29:11,870 --> 01:29:14,670
And one day, I got a phone
call from out of the blue,

1926
01:29:14,670 --> 01:29:16,370
from a guy named Paul Gray.

1927
01:29:16,370 --> 01:29:18,070
Maybe some of you
have encountered him,

1928
01:29:18,070 --> 01:29:20,860
a former president of MIT.

1929
01:29:20,860 --> 01:29:23,550
And he asked if I would
conduct some interviews

1930
01:29:23,550 --> 01:29:27,030
for this project they
had, oral history.

1931
01:29:27,030 --> 01:29:30,600
And I didn't know
what oral history was.

1932
01:29:30,600 --> 01:29:32,040
But it sounded interesting.

1933
01:29:32,040 --> 01:29:33,580
And I'm not good at saying "no."

1934
01:29:33,580 --> 01:29:35,210
And I said, sure.

1935
01:29:35,210 --> 01:29:35,900
I hung up.

1936
01:29:35,900 --> 01:29:37,660
And I started googling.

1937
01:29:37,660 --> 01:29:39,690
And I discovered that
Columbia University

1938
01:29:39,690 --> 01:29:41,960
was the center of oral history.

1939
01:29:41,960 --> 01:29:45,000
They had this big
archive of world figures.

1940
01:29:45,000 --> 01:29:47,600
A history professor
in the 1940s had

1941
01:29:47,600 --> 01:29:52,750
started to do this thing
that hadn't existed before.

1942
01:29:52,750 --> 01:29:55,110
So I visited Colombia
and talked with them

1943
01:29:55,110 --> 01:29:56,730
and discovered that
what we were doing

1944
01:29:56,730 --> 01:29:58,570
wasn't really oral
history, which

1945
01:29:58,570 --> 01:30:01,140
tends to be much
more open ended.

1946
01:30:01,140 --> 01:30:04,300
These things go one
for 40, 50, 100 hours.

1947
01:30:04,300 --> 01:30:08,260
It's sort of sit back
and dump everything,

1948
01:30:08,260 --> 01:30:11,680
in a very relaxed fashion.

1949
01:30:11,680 --> 01:30:14,460
The MIT ones were
about two hours each,

1950
01:30:14,460 --> 01:30:17,510
tied to the sesquicentennial.

1951
01:30:17,510 --> 01:30:19,340
There had been a
planning committee that

1952
01:30:19,340 --> 01:30:23,780
started about five
years ago, to say,

1953
01:30:23,780 --> 01:30:25,760
150th anniversary is coming up.

1954
01:30:25,760 --> 01:30:27,440
What should we do?

1955
01:30:27,440 --> 01:30:29,480
And one of the things
they came up with

1956
01:30:29,480 --> 01:30:33,550
was to gather some
interviews with people

1957
01:30:33,550 --> 01:30:36,720
who had been important in the
development of the Institute,

1958
01:30:36,720 --> 01:30:38,260
over the last 50 years.

1959
01:30:38,260 --> 01:30:42,440
And they put together a
list of about 75 people

1960
01:30:42,440 --> 01:30:48,820
and had hired a guy named
John Hockenberry, who

1961
01:30:48,820 --> 01:30:53,070
has been on ABC, I think,
and National Public Radio.

1962
01:30:53,070 --> 01:30:56,620
But he was a visiting
professor in the Media Lab.

1963
01:30:56,620 --> 01:30:59,485
And he was the main person who
was going to do the interviews.

1964
01:30:59,485 --> 01:31:02,125
They had a couple of
other people helping him.

1965
01:31:02,125 --> 01:31:05,400
And at some point,
he got a new program.

1966
01:31:05,400 --> 01:31:08,760
And he said, so
long, can't do both.

1967
01:31:08,760 --> 01:31:10,730
And that's when I
got the phone call.

1968
01:31:10,730 --> 01:31:13,060
So I came in part way through.

1969
01:31:13,060 --> 01:31:17,160
He had already done a handful
of interviews, probably six

1970
01:31:17,160 --> 01:31:20,260
or eight or 10, including
the former presidents who

1971
01:31:20,260 --> 01:31:22,860
were still living.

1972
01:31:22,860 --> 01:31:27,200
They had laid out a sort
of rough template of seven

1973
01:31:27,200 --> 01:31:28,560
broad topic areas.

1974
01:31:28,560 --> 01:31:30,380
They wanted to make
sure we asked people

1975
01:31:30,380 --> 01:31:32,930
where they were born
and how they grew up;

1976
01:31:32,930 --> 01:31:36,680
how they got to MIT, whether it
was as a student or a faculty

1977
01:31:36,680 --> 01:31:41,250
member; whatever their
impressions of MIT;

1978
01:31:41,250 --> 01:31:45,460
their role in the world of
MIT; how it had changed;

1979
01:31:45,460 --> 01:31:47,110
and how it had
affected their lives.

1980
01:31:47,110 --> 01:31:49,670
So if you sign on
to these things.

1981
01:31:49,670 --> 01:31:52,250
And there are, I
think, about 102.

1982
01:31:52,250 --> 01:31:59,050
I did 40 of them, over about
2 and 1/2 years, including

1983
01:31:59,050 --> 01:32:01,400
your professor and
your other professor.

1984
01:32:01,400 --> 01:32:02,670
He isn't here today.

1985
01:32:02,670 --> 01:32:04,130
PROFESSOR: He had
to run out for--

1986
01:32:04,130 --> 01:32:04,880
KAREN ARENSON: OK.

1987
01:32:04,880 --> 01:32:06,270
Anyway, I did both of them.

1988
01:32:09,110 --> 01:32:12,030
Unfortunately, my
thesis adviser,

1989
01:32:12,030 --> 01:32:14,840
Bob Solow, one of the
Nobel Prize winners,

1990
01:32:14,840 --> 01:32:17,350
subsequently had
already been done.

1991
01:32:17,350 --> 01:32:19,320
Samuelson had been done.

1992
01:32:19,320 --> 01:32:23,460
I did Jim Poterba,
Lester Thurow.

1993
01:32:23,460 --> 01:32:24,850
It was a sort of hit or miss.

1994
01:32:24,850 --> 01:32:27,280
It depended on their
scheduling and mine.

1995
01:32:27,280 --> 01:32:32,460
So I got to do some people I
knew and got thrown into some.

1996
01:32:32,460 --> 01:32:35,960
I said, I don't know
anything about that.

1997
01:32:35,960 --> 01:32:38,340
So I learned.

1998
01:32:38,340 --> 01:32:42,000
And that actually
was the fun of it.

1999
01:32:42,000 --> 01:32:45,460
As a journalist, I was very
used to interviewing people.

2000
01:32:45,460 --> 01:32:48,620
I've been doing it
professionally for 35 years.

2001
01:32:48,620 --> 01:32:49,990
But it was very different.

2002
01:32:49,990 --> 01:32:52,700
I never had to do it
in front of a camera.

2003
01:32:52,700 --> 01:32:55,470
And these interviews
were videotaped.

2004
01:32:55,470 --> 01:32:58,110
I never had to worry about
a beginning, a middle,

2005
01:32:58,110 --> 01:32:58,890
and an end.

2006
01:32:58,890 --> 01:33:02,370
I could sort of start
somewhere and sort of go

2007
01:33:02,370 --> 01:33:05,140
and come back to
it, say thank you.

2008
01:33:05,140 --> 01:33:07,300
And if I forgot
something, I call up again

2009
01:33:07,300 --> 01:33:10,740
or email and say,
oops, what about this.

2010
01:33:10,740 --> 01:33:13,670
These were two-hour
sound bytes that

2011
01:33:13,670 --> 01:33:18,120
were pretty much as
they were recorded.

2012
01:33:18,120 --> 01:33:20,740
They weren't edited.

2013
01:33:20,740 --> 01:33:24,880
Except for maybe, they took
out some "ums" and "you knows."

2014
01:33:24,880 --> 01:33:27,810
But other than that, they're
pretty much as recorded.

2015
01:33:30,330 --> 01:33:34,290
I was pretty compulsive
about preparing for them.

2016
01:33:34,290 --> 01:33:36,450
I tried to learn
as much as possible

2017
01:33:36,450 --> 01:33:39,390
about the people I was
going to interview.

2018
01:33:39,390 --> 01:33:43,270
And I usually drew up about
12 to 14 pages of questions.

2019
01:33:43,270 --> 01:33:45,790
Because I didn't want to
get to an hour and a half

2020
01:33:45,790 --> 01:33:49,500
and have half an hour to fill
and think, oh, my goodness.

2021
01:33:49,500 --> 01:33:51,130
What am I going to ask?

2022
01:33:51,130 --> 01:33:54,570
It's not that I've ever had a
problem thinking of questions.

2023
01:33:54,570 --> 01:33:57,360
But when you're on camera,
you can't just sort of

2024
01:33:57,360 --> 01:33:58,640
sit there and think, hm.

2025
01:33:58,640 --> 01:34:01,490
What do I do next?

2026
01:34:01,490 --> 01:34:04,140
Some of the interviewees
answered questions

2027
01:34:04,140 --> 01:34:07,640
at length, two, three,
five paragraphs.

2028
01:34:07,640 --> 01:34:10,800
Sometimes, people answered
in two or three words.

2029
01:34:10,800 --> 01:34:12,490
And the trouble
was I didn't know

2030
01:34:12,490 --> 01:34:15,725
which it was going to be
because I didn't know them.

2031
01:34:18,510 --> 01:34:21,330
When I prepared to
interview Noam Chomsky,

2032
01:34:21,330 --> 01:34:26,340
the famous linguist and the
highly-visible political

2033
01:34:26,340 --> 01:34:29,680
activist, there
was more material

2034
01:34:29,680 --> 01:34:31,980
than you could
absorb in a lifetime.

2035
01:34:31,980 --> 01:34:34,190
He'd written so many books.

2036
01:34:34,190 --> 01:34:36,250
There were several
biographies about him,

2037
01:34:36,250 --> 01:34:40,880
including his life at MIT
and what he thought about it.

2038
01:34:40,880 --> 01:34:43,510
I think he's the most
interviewed man on earth,

2039
01:34:43,510 --> 01:34:44,570
literally.

2040
01:34:44,570 --> 01:34:46,750
I mean, there are days
when he'll schedule three

2041
01:34:46,750 --> 01:34:49,880
or four interviews, five,
six, seven days a week.

2042
01:34:49,880 --> 01:34:51,670
If you google Noam
Chomsky, there's

2043
01:34:51,670 --> 01:34:54,060
a whole website where lots
of them are available.

2044
01:34:54,060 --> 01:34:57,810
So if you're into that,
he's a fascinating man.

2045
01:34:57,810 --> 01:35:01,070
But there was a lot more
than I could digest.

2046
01:35:01,070 --> 01:35:02,870
I dipped into some of it.

2047
01:35:02,870 --> 01:35:04,290
I ordered some of his books.

2048
01:35:04,290 --> 01:35:06,290
I had some of them on my shelf.

2049
01:35:06,290 --> 01:35:07,890
I read about him.

2050
01:35:07,890 --> 01:35:12,170
But there was no way I was
going to understand it all.

2051
01:35:12,170 --> 01:35:14,000
And then, at the other
end of the spectrum,

2052
01:35:14,000 --> 01:35:18,190
there were people where you
could find almost nothing,

2053
01:35:18,190 --> 01:35:21,090
like your provost Rafael Reif.

2054
01:35:21,090 --> 01:35:24,250
I had a short biographical
sketch of him.

2055
01:35:24,250 --> 01:35:26,850
I had a news release,
announcing that he

2056
01:35:26,850 --> 01:35:28,900
was going to be provost.

2057
01:35:28,900 --> 01:35:31,570
And then, there was this blank.

2058
01:35:31,570 --> 01:35:33,090
Where did he come from?

2059
01:35:33,090 --> 01:35:36,020
What did he do?

2060
01:35:36,020 --> 01:35:39,000
It turned out, he was a
pretty interesting fellow,

2061
01:35:39,000 --> 01:35:41,960
whose parents had
fled Nazi Europe

2062
01:35:41,960 --> 01:35:44,240
and moved around Latin America.

2063
01:35:44,240 --> 01:35:48,073
He grew up in Venezuela.

2064
01:35:51,160 --> 01:35:54,394
He was a chess expert,
all this stuff.

2065
01:35:54,394 --> 01:35:55,810
But you couldn't
find it anywhere.

2066
01:35:55,810 --> 01:35:58,800
So I began to learn
about it by calling

2067
01:35:58,800 --> 01:36:03,940
some of the people he worked
with, and little by little.

2068
01:36:03,940 --> 01:36:07,050
I could've gone
into the interviews

2069
01:36:07,050 --> 01:36:09,520
without knowing all this
and just sort of said, so

2070
01:36:09,520 --> 01:36:11,880
tell me where you were
born and where you grew up

2071
01:36:11,880 --> 01:36:13,580
and what you liked
to do as a kid.

2072
01:36:13,580 --> 01:36:14,840
And did you tinker?

2073
01:36:14,840 --> 01:36:18,750
But I liked to know
as much as I could.

2074
01:36:18,750 --> 01:36:20,570
Because maybe he
wouldn't think something

2075
01:36:20,570 --> 01:36:23,520
was interesting or
important that I would.

2076
01:36:23,520 --> 01:36:27,180
And if I knew about it, I
could say, but what about this.

2077
01:36:27,180 --> 01:36:34,370
So I did as much learning as
possible before each interview.

2078
01:36:34,370 --> 01:36:36,590
And then, the two
biggest challenges

2079
01:36:36,590 --> 01:36:39,180
were to figure out
what was important

2080
01:36:39,180 --> 01:36:41,920
and how to pace the interview.

2081
01:36:41,920 --> 01:36:44,457
There were all these topics
I was supposed to cover.

2082
01:36:44,457 --> 01:36:46,040
And you didn't know
if they were going

2083
01:36:46,040 --> 01:36:50,060
to talk fast or talk slowly.

2084
01:36:50,060 --> 01:36:53,330
At the end of 40 interviews,
I still couldn't tell you how.

2085
01:36:53,330 --> 01:36:55,930
I used to sit there very tense.

2086
01:36:55,930 --> 01:36:57,710
The first hour
was OK because you

2087
01:36:57,710 --> 01:37:00,100
figured whatever we covered.

2088
01:37:00,100 --> 01:37:03,320
But then, it began to
be, do I have enough.

2089
01:37:03,320 --> 01:37:05,250
Are we going to
have way too much?

2090
01:37:05,250 --> 01:37:08,450
And how do I get everything in?

2091
01:37:08,450 --> 01:37:11,020
So that's the process.

2092
01:37:11,020 --> 01:37:14,010
What did I learn?

2093
01:37:14,010 --> 01:37:16,250
I didn't have any
of these interviews

2094
01:37:16,250 --> 01:37:18,960
to look at until
January 7, when they all

2095
01:37:18,960 --> 01:37:20,680
went up on the website.

2096
01:37:20,680 --> 01:37:24,900
And then, I said, I have to
do this panel on February 15.

2097
01:37:24,900 --> 01:37:26,380
And it would be
really helpful if I

2098
01:37:26,380 --> 01:37:29,980
could look at the interviews
and have the transcripts.

2099
01:37:29,980 --> 01:37:36,510
Because the videos are
interesting, but it's hard.

2100
01:37:36,510 --> 01:37:37,990
It's slow.

2101
01:37:37,990 --> 01:37:39,000
They take two hours.

2102
01:37:39,000 --> 01:37:41,270
If you read them, it's faster.

2103
01:37:41,270 --> 01:37:43,440
And if you go to the
little unlock feature,

2104
01:37:43,440 --> 01:37:46,440
it turns out you can
disengage from the voice.

2105
01:37:46,440 --> 01:37:51,460
And you can even turn it off,
by just lowering your voice.

2106
01:37:51,460 --> 01:37:55,690
It's a little hard to read down.

2107
01:37:55,690 --> 01:37:59,400
I called the people who
are running them and said,

2108
01:37:59,400 --> 01:38:03,160
can people download the
voice and listen on an iPod,

2109
01:38:03,160 --> 01:38:05,920
while they're on treadmill?

2110
01:38:05,920 --> 01:38:10,370
And they said,
hm, good idea, no.

2111
01:38:10,370 --> 01:38:11,940
This is MIT.

2112
01:38:11,940 --> 01:38:16,800
So anyway, I've begun
to go through them.

2113
01:38:16,800 --> 01:38:19,950
They all meld together,
in a funny way.

2114
01:38:19,950 --> 01:38:23,280
They were all my favorite
because pretty much all of them

2115
01:38:23,280 --> 01:38:27,330
were fascinating
in different ways.

2116
01:38:27,330 --> 01:38:29,620
So lessons I learned,
and I'm going

2117
01:38:29,620 --> 01:38:32,950
to tell you some stories
and maybe too many.

2118
01:38:32,950 --> 01:38:35,740
Probably the most
important lesson

2119
01:38:35,740 --> 01:38:38,240
was that MIT is
indeed filled with

2120
01:38:38,240 --> 01:38:42,650
amazing, brilliant,
creative people.

2121
01:38:42,650 --> 01:38:45,100
For me, it was a dream
to be able to talk

2122
01:38:45,100 --> 01:38:47,180
with so many of them.

2123
01:38:47,180 --> 01:38:50,180
But it's actually
important because MIT

2124
01:38:50,180 --> 01:38:53,310
is a special and
important institution.

2125
01:38:53,310 --> 01:38:59,010
Because somehow, it manages
to attract them and hold them.

2126
01:38:59,010 --> 01:39:00,320
It includes the students.

2127
01:39:00,320 --> 01:39:03,950
Faculty say over and over
again that they stay here

2128
01:39:03,950 --> 01:39:06,330
because they get
students like you,

2129
01:39:06,330 --> 01:39:10,200
who are just really bright and
really interested and really

2130
01:39:10,200 --> 01:39:12,340
driven.

2131
01:39:12,340 --> 01:39:15,780
But the staff, the
alumni, the trustees.

2132
01:39:15,780 --> 01:39:18,060
And when you begin to
put people like this

2133
01:39:18,060 --> 01:39:23,080
in some kind of environment,
innovation happens.

2134
01:39:23,080 --> 01:39:25,780
And that's what
MIT is known for.

2135
01:39:25,780 --> 01:39:28,210
And it's not a coincidence.

2136
01:39:28,210 --> 01:39:29,680
And you need an
environment where

2137
01:39:29,680 --> 01:39:32,680
they can mix with
each other and create.

2138
01:39:32,680 --> 01:39:35,760
And many of the interviewees
talk about that,

2139
01:39:35,760 --> 01:39:38,490
during their two hours.

2140
01:39:38,490 --> 01:39:41,495
One example is Bob Langer,
the chemical engineer

2141
01:39:41,495 --> 01:39:43,970
and biotechnologist.

2142
01:39:43,970 --> 01:39:47,400
When they called me and said,
he's this biotechnologist.

2143
01:39:47,400 --> 01:39:48,910
I said, ew.

2144
01:39:48,910 --> 01:39:51,245
I don't know anything
about that subject.

2145
01:39:51,245 --> 01:39:52,810
But I fell in love with him.

2146
01:39:52,810 --> 01:39:54,920
He's just amazing.

2147
01:39:54,920 --> 01:39:58,160
He has more than 750 patents.

2148
01:39:58,160 --> 01:40:01,260
He runs the biggest lab at MIT.

2149
01:40:01,260 --> 01:40:04,150
And he's one of the guys who
said that what holds him here--

2150
01:40:04,150 --> 01:40:08,980
and I'm sure he's had offers
from anywhere and everywhere.

2151
01:40:08,980 --> 01:40:10,570
He said, "It's the best place.

2152
01:40:10,570 --> 01:40:14,080
It has exceptional students,
exceptional colleagues.

2153
01:40:14,080 --> 01:40:17,550
I feel I can have the
greatest impact because

2154
01:40:17,550 --> 01:40:19,570
of all those people."

2155
01:40:19,570 --> 01:40:21,750
Or Donald Sadoway, I
don't know if any of you

2156
01:40:21,750 --> 01:40:29,520
took his 3.091, which satisfies
the chemistry requirement.

2157
01:40:29,520 --> 01:40:34,180
He talked about arriving here
as a post-doc from Toronto.

2158
01:40:34,180 --> 01:40:36,350
He said, "I remember
when I first arrived.

2159
01:40:36,350 --> 01:40:39,870
And I walked up the stairs,
the steps from that crosswalk

2160
01:40:39,870 --> 01:40:44,950
at 77, and looked up at those
pillars and thought, well,

2161
01:40:44,950 --> 01:40:47,260
you've really done it.

2162
01:40:47,260 --> 01:40:51,260
This is high stakes, no more
big fish in a small pond."

2163
01:40:51,260 --> 01:40:53,200
He'd been up in Toronto.

2164
01:40:53,200 --> 01:40:54,600
"This is the real deal."

2165
01:40:54,600 --> 01:40:56,270
So here's this big
guy and telling

2166
01:40:56,270 --> 01:40:58,510
us what went through his mind.

2167
01:40:58,510 --> 01:41:00,900
"And the early days
were very heady.

2168
01:41:00,900 --> 01:41:04,630
I mean to be surrounded
with super bright people.

2169
01:41:04,630 --> 01:41:06,890
I was postdocing with Julian.

2170
01:41:06,890 --> 01:41:09,030
And the kinds of
people would come

2171
01:41:09,030 --> 01:41:11,800
to visit him was just
a different world

2172
01:41:11,800 --> 01:41:13,970
from the University of Toronto."

2173
01:41:13,970 --> 01:41:16,680
So it's not only the people who
are here, but the people who

2174
01:41:16,680 --> 01:41:19,750
came to see them, who
added to that whole, what

2175
01:41:19,750 --> 01:41:22,850
makes MIT special.

2176
01:41:22,850 --> 01:41:24,700
There were other common themes.

2177
01:41:24,700 --> 01:41:26,990
Many of the people
at MIT started

2178
01:41:26,990 --> 01:41:29,400
from really modest backgrounds.

2179
01:41:29,400 --> 01:41:32,320
Many of them were
immigrants or children

2180
01:41:32,320 --> 01:41:36,785
of immigrants, Joel Moses, the
former provost, Rafael Reif,

2181
01:41:36,785 --> 01:41:40,790
the current provost, Claude
Canizares, the vice president

2182
01:41:40,790 --> 01:41:44,200
for research and
associate provost.

2183
01:41:44,200 --> 01:41:46,590
Many of them pointed
to serendipity,

2184
01:41:46,590 --> 01:41:49,180
in the shaping of their
lives and their careers.

2185
01:41:49,180 --> 01:41:53,960
That's a wonderful word, one
that the sociologist, Merton,

2186
01:41:53,960 --> 01:41:57,960
who's the father of the Merton
here, did a whole book about.

2187
01:41:57,960 --> 01:42:01,020
I think he called
it Serendipity.

2188
01:42:01,020 --> 01:42:05,520
It would be easy to think that
all these brilliant people knew

2189
01:42:05,520 --> 01:42:08,860
what they wanted to do
from the age of three

2190
01:42:08,860 --> 01:42:13,520
and that they followed a
smooth, predictable path.

2191
01:42:13,520 --> 01:42:16,390
When you're trying to figure
out should I do this or that,

2192
01:42:16,390 --> 01:42:17,850
you think everyone
else knows what

2193
01:42:17,850 --> 01:42:19,565
they're doing except for me.

2194
01:42:19,565 --> 01:42:20,970
It ain't so.

2195
01:42:20,970 --> 01:42:24,030
If you watch these videos,
over and over again,

2196
01:42:24,030 --> 01:42:27,300
people talk about well,
I was going along.

2197
01:42:27,300 --> 01:42:28,340
And then this happened.

2198
01:42:28,340 --> 01:42:29,860
And suddenly, I was going along.

2199
01:42:29,860 --> 01:42:32,850
And this happened.

2200
01:42:32,850 --> 01:42:34,940
It really is striking.

2201
01:42:34,940 --> 01:42:37,580
Most of them said
they had no grand plan

2202
01:42:37,580 --> 01:42:39,620
and that luck
played a large role.

2203
01:42:39,620 --> 01:42:43,320
One example was Bob
Horvitz, the MIT professor

2204
01:42:43,320 --> 01:42:47,870
who won a Nobel Prize for
his research on worms.

2205
01:42:47,870 --> 01:42:51,300
He was actually one of my
news editors at The Tech.

2206
01:42:51,300 --> 01:42:52,840
He was two years ahead of me.

2207
01:42:55,980 --> 01:42:58,240
He double majored in
Math and Economics.

2208
01:42:58,240 --> 01:43:02,590
And he was ready to graduate
after three years anyway.

2209
01:43:02,590 --> 01:43:06,230
But he got elected president
of the student government.

2210
01:43:06,230 --> 01:43:07,840
So he stayed for another year.

2211
01:43:07,840 --> 01:43:10,690
So he had to fill out a
fourth year of classes.

2212
01:43:10,690 --> 01:43:12,420
He didn't know what to take.

2213
01:43:12,420 --> 01:43:14,390
And one of his
fraternity brothers

2214
01:43:14,390 --> 01:43:18,910
said, why don't you try a
biology class, course seven.

2215
01:43:18,910 --> 01:43:21,310
So he took a bio course.

2216
01:43:21,310 --> 01:43:23,310
And he fell in love with it.

2217
01:43:23,310 --> 01:43:25,630
And six weeks into
the term, he thought,

2218
01:43:25,630 --> 01:43:29,050
this is what I want to do,
not math, not economics.

2219
01:43:29,050 --> 01:43:32,109
I want to do biology.

2220
01:43:32,109 --> 01:43:33,400
But he was kind of embarrassed.

2221
01:43:33,400 --> 01:43:35,054
Here he was a senior.

2222
01:43:35,054 --> 01:43:36,470
And he was taking
his first class.

2223
01:43:36,470 --> 01:43:38,000
And he wanted to
go to grad school.

2224
01:43:38,000 --> 01:43:40,160
So we went up to his professor.

2225
01:43:40,160 --> 01:43:42,650
And he was sort of apologetic.

2226
01:43:42,650 --> 01:43:46,600
And he said, I want to go to
grad school, but you know.

2227
01:43:46,600 --> 01:43:49,620
And the professor, whose
name was Cy Leventhal,

2228
01:43:49,620 --> 01:43:50,890
told him not to worry.

2229
01:43:50,890 --> 01:43:53,240
He had been a physics major.

2230
01:43:53,240 --> 01:43:55,530
And he had gone to
graduate school in physics

2231
01:43:55,530 --> 01:43:57,420
and gotten his PhD in Physics.

2232
01:43:57,420 --> 01:44:01,110
And here he was
teaching biology at MIT.

2233
01:44:01,110 --> 01:44:03,000
He said, so you're
starting early.

2234
01:44:03,000 --> 01:44:05,620
So it really isn't
too late to figure out

2235
01:44:05,620 --> 01:44:11,830
what you like to do and try
things and keep exploring.

2236
01:44:11,830 --> 01:44:17,210
Woodie Flowers, the mechanical
engineering professor

2237
01:44:17,210 --> 01:44:21,310
who started the big contest,
where you get a bag of stuff.

2238
01:44:21,310 --> 01:44:24,490
And you have to build a
gadget that does something.

2239
01:44:24,490 --> 01:44:28,190
And then, they have a
big contest at the end.

2240
01:44:28,190 --> 01:44:30,930
And the different
little robotic machines

2241
01:44:30,930 --> 01:44:32,130
compete with each other.

2242
01:44:32,130 --> 01:44:34,450
That was Woodie Flowers.

2243
01:44:34,450 --> 01:44:36,600
He didn't even plan
to go to college.

2244
01:44:36,600 --> 01:44:40,830
I think he grew up in Alabama
or Arkansas, in a poor family.

2245
01:44:40,830 --> 01:44:43,300
His family couldn't afford it.

2246
01:44:43,300 --> 01:44:46,530
But his senior year in high
school, one of his teachers

2247
01:44:46,530 --> 01:44:50,360
noticed that his arm
wasn't set right.

2248
01:44:50,360 --> 01:44:53,260
He had broken it when he fell
out of a tree in second grade.

2249
01:44:53,260 --> 01:44:55,500
And it had never
been fixed properly.

2250
01:44:55,500 --> 01:44:58,770
And some teacher took
an interested in him

2251
01:44:58,770 --> 01:45:01,740
and got it set right, I guess.

2252
01:45:01,740 --> 01:45:03,670
They had to re-break
it or something.

2253
01:45:03,670 --> 01:45:04,470
I don't know.

2254
01:45:04,470 --> 01:45:07,400
But then, the orthopedic surgeon
looked at the elbow and said,

2255
01:45:07,400 --> 01:45:10,160
you really need some rehab.

2256
01:45:10,160 --> 01:45:12,520
You can't just walk out of here.

2257
01:45:12,520 --> 01:45:15,640
And he wrote some kind
of letter to the state.

2258
01:45:15,640 --> 01:45:18,100
And the state gave
Woodie Flowers

2259
01:45:18,100 --> 01:45:22,540
what he called a rehabilitation
scholarship to college.

2260
01:45:22,540 --> 01:45:25,460
And so we went to college.

2261
01:45:25,460 --> 01:45:27,364
And at the end of college,
he was doing well.

2262
01:45:27,364 --> 01:45:28,780
And his professor
said, you really

2263
01:45:28,780 --> 01:45:30,680
ought to think
about grad school.

2264
01:45:30,680 --> 01:45:32,820
And you really ought
to think about MIT.

2265
01:45:32,820 --> 01:45:35,370
I mean, this isn't all Woodie
doing lots of homework.

2266
01:45:35,370 --> 01:45:38,530
It's some chance
meeting with people

2267
01:45:38,530 --> 01:45:40,360
who took an interest in him.

2268
01:45:40,360 --> 01:45:42,735
Now undoubtedly, he worked hard.

2269
01:45:42,735 --> 01:45:44,310
He was smart.

2270
01:45:44,310 --> 01:45:45,620
He was creative.

2271
01:45:45,620 --> 01:45:48,130
And so I don't think it's
a coincidence that people

2272
01:45:48,130 --> 01:45:50,650
were taking an interest in him.

2273
01:45:50,650 --> 01:45:56,130
But it wasn't his
planning out his life.

2274
01:45:56,130 --> 01:46:00,580
Rafael Reif, the provost
I was telling you about,

2275
01:46:00,580 --> 01:46:03,220
had several other older
brothers and one of them

2276
01:46:03,220 --> 01:46:06,320
had come to study in the states.

2277
01:46:06,320 --> 01:46:08,210
This is way before the internet.

2278
01:46:08,210 --> 01:46:10,630
How do you learn about
colleges in the states?

2279
01:46:10,630 --> 01:46:12,670
You go to the American embassy.

2280
01:46:12,670 --> 01:46:15,010
They have a bunch
of college catalogs.

2281
01:46:15,010 --> 01:46:16,920
And the one thing
he knew was that he

2282
01:46:16,920 --> 01:46:20,350
didn't think he wanted
to experience winter.

2283
01:46:20,350 --> 01:46:23,960
Venezuela's not a
place of winters.

2284
01:46:23,960 --> 01:46:29,450
So he looked at California
schools, ended up at Stanford,

2285
01:46:29,450 --> 01:46:33,310
didn't know a lot of English
when he came, translated hard

2286
01:46:33,310 --> 01:46:37,650
for lots of hours the first
two semesters, did pretty well.

2287
01:46:37,650 --> 01:46:42,210
And he was going to go home
to Venezuela to be a teacher.

2288
01:46:42,210 --> 01:46:45,040
Only, he had a
brother at MIT and he

2289
01:46:45,040 --> 01:46:48,030
thought he'd come visit
him before he went back

2290
01:46:48,030 --> 01:46:49,947
to Venezuela.

2291
01:46:49,947 --> 01:46:51,530
And one of his former
colleagues said,

2292
01:46:51,530 --> 01:46:52,880
I thought you were going home?

2293
01:46:52,880 --> 01:46:55,230
And he said, yeah, but
I'm going to go visit MIT.

2294
01:46:55,230 --> 01:46:58,280
And the guy said, there's
a spot open there.

2295
01:46:58,280 --> 01:47:02,210
So he said, well,
maybe I'll look at it.

2296
01:47:02,210 --> 01:47:06,135
Of course, he got the
offer, told his wife,

2297
01:47:06,135 --> 01:47:08,260
I think we're
going to stay here.

2298
01:47:08,260 --> 01:47:10,570
Somebody told him you
put on lots of layers

2299
01:47:10,570 --> 01:47:12,770
and you deal with
winter, so he's

2300
01:47:12,770 --> 01:47:14,830
dealt with winter ever since.

2301
01:47:14,830 --> 01:47:20,100
But again, sort of a chance
meeting with a former colleague

2302
01:47:20,100 --> 01:47:22,880
who said, I know about a spot.

2303
01:47:22,880 --> 01:47:26,180
But for that, he'd probably
be back in Venezuela teaching.

2304
01:47:29,660 --> 01:47:31,370
He summed it up
by saying, "I had

2305
01:47:31,370 --> 01:47:34,100
to change all the plans
at the last minute.

2306
01:47:34,100 --> 01:47:36,950
It was just one of those
accidents of history

2307
01:47:36,950 --> 01:47:38,850
that helped me a great deal."

2308
01:47:38,850 --> 01:47:41,810
But you get this over and
over again in these videos.

2309
01:47:41,810 --> 01:47:45,870
And it's really
kind of stunning.

2310
01:47:45,870 --> 01:47:47,630
Other lessons from
the interviews--

2311
01:47:47,630 --> 01:47:50,070
I learned a lot
about MIT's history.

2312
01:47:50,070 --> 01:47:52,470
You know, I'd heard of
William Barton Rogers,

2313
01:47:52,470 --> 01:47:55,460
but it wasn't until I
started reading the Decisions

2314
01:47:55,460 --> 01:47:57,890
book, which is
really a good read,

2315
01:47:57,890 --> 01:48:02,340
and talked to Professor Smith,
for example, that I understood

2316
01:48:02,340 --> 01:48:07,780
a lot more about MIT's
early years, the emphasis

2317
01:48:07,780 --> 01:48:11,760
that William Barton Rogers put
on real scientific research,

2318
01:48:11,760 --> 01:48:14,870
the people he drew
to support him,

2319
01:48:14,870 --> 01:48:18,870
the efforts to merge Harvard
and MIT, several times.

2320
01:48:18,870 --> 01:48:21,820
Luckily, it didn't happen.

2321
01:48:21,820 --> 01:48:24,710
There was an interesting
chapter on MIT's Center

2322
01:48:24,710 --> 01:48:28,440
for International Studies,
which had links to the CIA

2323
01:48:28,440 --> 01:48:29,370
for a while.

2324
01:48:29,370 --> 01:48:32,670
The CIA essentially
got it off the ground.

2325
01:48:32,670 --> 01:48:35,410
By the end of World
War II, MIT was

2326
01:48:35,410 --> 01:48:38,810
used to collaborating
with the government.

2327
01:48:38,810 --> 01:48:42,790
It had provided lots of
help on things like radar.

2328
01:48:42,790 --> 01:48:45,570
And so, when the
CIA asked for help

2329
01:48:45,570 --> 01:48:51,230
in learning more about
communications and propaganda--

2330
01:48:51,230 --> 01:48:53,450
because it was
the Cold War, late

2331
01:48:53,450 --> 01:49:00,040
'40s-- MIT said, sure,
why worry about it?

2332
01:49:00,040 --> 01:49:02,490
So two of the interviews
are with people

2333
01:49:02,490 --> 01:49:05,630
who were involved with the
center-- Donald Blackmer

2334
01:49:05,630 --> 01:49:07,820
and Jean Shkolnikov.

2335
01:49:07,820 --> 01:49:11,120
And they talk about the
center, and the protests

2336
01:49:11,120 --> 01:49:12,760
against the center.

2337
01:49:12,760 --> 01:49:15,900
There was a bombing in
the Herman building,

2338
01:49:15,900 --> 01:49:18,950
and the eventual
break with the CIA.

2339
01:49:18,950 --> 01:49:20,940
And they talk about
the development

2340
01:49:20,940 --> 01:49:22,800
of political science at MIT.

2341
01:49:22,800 --> 01:49:25,320
You were talking about how
different courses evolve,

2342
01:49:25,320 --> 01:49:31,210
so course 14, 15, and 17 all
used to be glommed together--

2343
01:49:31,210 --> 01:49:33,690
economics, political
science, and management.

2344
01:49:33,690 --> 01:49:36,730
At some point they were
separated, economics

2345
01:49:36,730 --> 01:49:40,610
and management, first,
political science later.

2346
01:49:40,610 --> 01:49:42,960
Probably would make a
good project for somebody

2347
01:49:42,960 --> 01:49:47,380
to explore the different
courses and how they came along.

2348
01:49:47,380 --> 01:49:50,950
Another historical chapter that
some interviewees talked about

2349
01:49:50,950 --> 01:49:53,670
was the huge disruption
during Vietnam.

2350
01:49:53,670 --> 01:49:56,960
The anti-war protests
that tore the campus apart

2351
01:49:56,960 --> 01:49:59,230
in the late 1960s.

2352
01:49:59,230 --> 01:50:02,280
So Noam Chomsky talked about
it from the perspective

2353
01:50:02,280 --> 01:50:05,460
of an activist professor.

2354
01:50:05,460 --> 01:50:10,210
Larry Bacow and I, I
got interviewed too,

2355
01:50:10,210 --> 01:50:11,790
talked about it
from the perspective

2356
01:50:11,790 --> 01:50:13,620
of the students who were there.

2357
01:50:13,620 --> 01:50:16,140
Howard Johnson talks
about that period

2358
01:50:16,140 --> 01:50:19,260
from the perspective
of a president.

2359
01:50:19,260 --> 01:50:21,680
And then there was a guy
named Bill Pounds, who

2360
01:50:21,680 --> 01:50:25,930
was dean of the Sloan
School at that point, who

2361
01:50:25,930 --> 01:50:30,440
had followed Howard Johnson
as Dean of Sloan, who suddenly

2362
01:50:30,440 --> 01:50:33,010
found himself appointed
by the president

2363
01:50:33,010 --> 01:50:38,760
to head a committee to study the
role of MIT's two defense labs.

2364
01:50:38,760 --> 01:50:41,250
He said that Howard
Johnson went out of his way

2365
01:50:41,250 --> 01:50:43,970
to ensure that the membership
of this committee, which

2366
01:50:43,970 --> 01:50:47,440
was sort of meant to placate
everybody as much as to figure

2367
01:50:47,440 --> 01:50:52,320
out what to do, that the
president had gone out

2368
01:50:52,320 --> 01:50:55,790
of his way to make sure
there were radicals

2369
01:50:55,790 --> 01:51:00,890
and conservatives, that the
whole spectrum was represented.

2370
01:51:00,890 --> 01:51:03,050
He said it was kind of
like a Noah's Ark, two

2371
01:51:03,050 --> 01:51:05,375
by two, a radical, a
conservative, a radical,

2372
01:51:05,375 --> 01:51:07,250
a conservative.

2373
01:51:07,250 --> 01:51:10,407
And Bill stood up during
a raucous faculty meeting

2374
01:51:10,407 --> 01:51:11,990
and announced that
the committee would

2375
01:51:11,990 --> 01:51:15,020
start meeting the
following day-- a Saturday.

2376
01:51:15,020 --> 01:51:17,330
I think he'd been given
two or three days notice.

2377
01:51:17,330 --> 01:51:21,690
And this wasn't an area
he knew anything about.

2378
01:51:21,690 --> 01:51:24,210
They would meet every
day from 9:00 to 5:00

2379
01:51:24,210 --> 01:51:26,620
until they reached a conclusion.

2380
01:51:26,620 --> 01:51:28,430
He said that one
step that cleared

2381
01:51:28,430 --> 01:51:30,410
the way for the
commission to even begin

2382
01:51:30,410 --> 01:51:35,280
to talk to each other was
to give them as much time

2383
01:51:35,280 --> 01:51:38,650
as they needed at the front
end, just to go around the room

2384
01:51:38,650 --> 01:51:44,220
and let everybody talk about
their views on war and peace,

2385
01:51:44,220 --> 01:51:47,950
universities and truth,
and all the other kinds

2386
01:51:47,950 --> 01:51:50,610
of profundities, as he put it.

2387
01:51:50,610 --> 01:51:52,720
And then they got down to
work, because they'd all

2388
01:51:52,720 --> 01:51:54,160
sort of cleared their throats.

2389
01:51:54,160 --> 01:51:56,400
He said it took about a
week or a week and a half.

2390
01:51:59,210 --> 01:52:02,730
He also made observation about
being made dean of the Sloan

2391
01:52:02,730 --> 01:52:07,010
School just a few years
after he'd arrived at MIT.

2392
01:52:07,010 --> 01:52:11,450
And he said he hadn't
really understood the place.

2393
01:52:11,450 --> 01:52:15,950
We all look up to deans as these
are all-knowing creatures who

2394
01:52:15,950 --> 01:52:19,090
have put in lots of
time and get promoted.

2395
01:52:19,090 --> 01:52:21,770
He said, here he was
dean, and he didn't really

2396
01:52:21,770 --> 01:52:23,095
have much of a clue.

2397
01:52:23,095 --> 01:52:25,850
And he said he thought
that becoming dean, quote,

2398
01:52:25,850 --> 01:52:29,090
"might pull back
the curtain on MIT."

2399
01:52:29,090 --> 01:52:31,540
Instead, he said, he
discovered that quote,

2400
01:52:31,540 --> 01:52:35,380
"there was neither a curtain
nor anyone behind it."

2401
01:52:35,380 --> 01:52:38,850
Kind of like the Wizard of Oz.

2402
01:52:38,850 --> 01:52:40,980
He was an interesting
guy because he also

2403
01:52:40,980 --> 01:52:45,500
headed the Rockefeller
Brothers office for a decade

2404
01:52:45,500 --> 01:52:51,690
but was attached enough to MIT
so he commuted between Boston

2405
01:52:51,690 --> 01:52:55,480
and New York the whole time,
running the Rockefeller's

2406
01:52:55,480 --> 01:52:58,670
business and still
remaining here.

2407
01:52:58,670 --> 01:53:01,430
Anyway, he's very articulate.

2408
01:53:01,430 --> 01:53:04,830
It's another fun one to look
at, even if you've never

2409
01:53:04,830 --> 01:53:06,920
heard of him before today.

2410
01:53:06,920 --> 01:53:09,000
Another theme that
came up repeatedly

2411
01:53:09,000 --> 01:53:13,400
was MIT's unusual
openness and flexibility.

2412
01:53:13,400 --> 01:53:16,520
It seemed to be better
than many universities

2413
01:53:16,520 --> 01:53:21,530
at accepting people whose work
didn't fit into neat boxes.

2414
01:53:21,530 --> 01:53:24,150
And it was better
than most universities

2415
01:53:24,150 --> 01:53:27,440
and allowing people to
cut across boundaries.

2416
01:53:27,440 --> 01:53:30,340
I think when you're here,
you take it for granted

2417
01:53:30,340 --> 01:53:32,460
that it doesn't matter
what school you're in.

2418
01:53:32,460 --> 01:53:34,500
On other campuses,
it matters a lot

2419
01:53:34,500 --> 01:53:38,160
you never see the other people.

2420
01:53:38,160 --> 01:53:39,950
Again and again,
these were cited

2421
01:53:39,950 --> 01:53:43,790
as really important
factors in allowing people

2422
01:53:43,790 --> 01:53:46,330
to do innovative work.

2423
01:53:46,330 --> 01:53:49,140
And I'm sure MIT isn't
perfect on this score,

2424
01:53:49,140 --> 01:53:52,380
but it does appear to
really be different

2425
01:53:52,380 --> 01:53:54,000
from other institutions.

2426
01:53:54,000 --> 01:53:57,370
Chomsky, for example,
recalled his early efforts

2427
01:53:57,370 --> 01:54:01,760
to have his ground breaking
work in linguistics published,

2428
01:54:01,760 --> 01:54:05,330
only to be told that
there was no such field.

2429
01:54:05,330 --> 01:54:08,140
I mean, he was the father
of modern linguistics.

2430
01:54:08,140 --> 01:54:11,190
But MIT provided a
home from for him.

2431
01:54:11,190 --> 01:54:16,420
His first teaching job was to
help graduate students cram

2432
01:54:16,420 --> 01:54:20,510
for the language exams they
had to pass to get their PhDs.

2433
01:54:20,510 --> 01:54:22,350
I don't know if PhDs
are still required

2434
01:54:22,350 --> 01:54:26,500
to pass one or two languages,
but they were back in the '50s.

2435
01:54:30,730 --> 01:54:32,570
He said, "in your
early 20s, you're

2436
01:54:32,570 --> 01:54:34,700
thinking about
what you are doing.

2437
01:54:34,700 --> 01:54:38,020
You don't really care
what the world thinks."

2438
01:54:38,020 --> 01:54:42,210
Gradually, of course, his work
drew attention and respect

2439
01:54:42,210 --> 01:54:44,170
and got published.

2440
01:54:44,170 --> 01:54:47,700
Bob Langer, the biotech guy
I was talking to you about,

2441
01:54:47,700 --> 01:54:50,610
had a similar story.

2442
01:54:50,610 --> 01:54:54,450
He was a doctoral student
here in chemical engineering.

2443
01:54:54,450 --> 01:54:58,540
And most of his classmates
went from chemical engineering

2444
01:54:58,540 --> 01:55:00,230
to the petroleum industry.

2445
01:55:00,230 --> 01:55:02,110
This is what you did.

2446
01:55:02,110 --> 01:55:06,490
So he flew to Louisiana
to interview with Exxon.

2447
01:55:06,490 --> 01:55:08,520
And the executives
there explained

2448
01:55:08,520 --> 01:55:13,340
that if they could increase the
yield of some petrochemicals

2449
01:55:13,340 --> 01:55:17,050
by one one hundredth
of a percent,

2450
01:55:17,050 --> 01:55:20,160
they would make
billions of dollars.

2451
01:55:20,160 --> 01:55:23,020
On his flight home he
was thinking of that.

2452
01:55:23,020 --> 01:55:26,780
And he realized he had no
interest in doing any of that.

2453
01:55:26,780 --> 01:55:28,260
But what would he do?

2454
01:55:28,260 --> 01:55:30,220
Well, he kind of
wanted to change

2455
01:55:30,220 --> 01:55:33,490
the shape of chemical
engineering and chemistry.

2456
01:55:33,490 --> 01:55:35,640
So he started applying
for jobs to look

2457
01:55:35,640 --> 01:55:36,710
like they would do that.

2458
01:55:36,710 --> 01:55:38,500
But they didn't want him.

2459
01:55:38,500 --> 01:55:42,390
Exxon would have
taken him, but-- so he

2460
01:55:42,390 --> 01:55:45,460
kept looking and looking,
and eventually someone

2461
01:55:45,460 --> 01:55:48,470
suggested that he go talk
to this cancer researcher

2462
01:55:48,470 --> 01:55:49,840
at Harvard named Judah Folkman.

2463
01:55:52,630 --> 01:55:55,300
Hiring a chemical
engineer in a cancer lab

2464
01:55:55,300 --> 01:55:57,010
doesn't sound like
an obvious thing

2465
01:55:57,010 --> 01:56:01,480
to do, especially back
when he was coming out.

2466
01:56:01,480 --> 01:56:04,340
But Folkman was a
risk taker, and Langer

2467
01:56:04,340 --> 01:56:07,120
made a stunning breakthrough
in finding a new approach

2468
01:56:07,120 --> 01:56:11,300
to controlled drug delivery.

2469
01:56:11,300 --> 01:56:12,520
That was his post-doc.

2470
01:56:12,520 --> 01:56:14,860
He came back to MIT.

2471
01:56:14,860 --> 01:56:17,920
He got hired, but his
path was still bumpy.

2472
01:56:17,920 --> 01:56:20,570
He actually didn't get hired
into chemical engineering.

2473
01:56:20,570 --> 01:56:23,050
They didn't think he was doing
chemical engineering type

2474
01:56:23,050 --> 01:56:25,170
work, like petrochemicals.

2475
01:56:25,170 --> 01:56:30,370
He went into this applied
biology, course 20 at the time.

2476
01:56:30,370 --> 01:56:31,850
And they didn't love him either.

2477
01:56:31,850 --> 01:56:35,480
But somehow he kept on.

2478
01:56:35,480 --> 01:56:39,060
He said, "the path I wanted
to follow didn't exist,"

2479
01:56:39,060 --> 01:56:40,540
but he was hired.

2480
01:56:40,540 --> 01:56:42,000
And there was
enough room for him

2481
01:56:42,000 --> 01:56:45,780
to run and to start
publishing and earn tenure.

2482
01:56:45,780 --> 01:56:51,040
And today he's one of the most
venerated figures in the field.

2483
01:56:51,040 --> 01:56:53,390
You are another example
of crossing boundaries.

2484
01:56:53,390 --> 01:56:56,450
I mean, I don't know if he's
told you about his background.

2485
01:56:56,450 --> 01:56:57,860
He studied literature.

2486
01:56:57,860 --> 01:57:01,170
He double majored in literature
and electrical engineering

2487
01:57:01,170 --> 01:57:02,300
at Yale.

2488
01:57:02,300 --> 01:57:06,510
That's a pretty unusual
set of double majors.

2489
01:57:06,510 --> 01:57:08,510
And even after he
got here, he's been

2490
01:57:08,510 --> 01:57:12,000
a bridge between the humanities
department and the engineering

2491
01:57:12,000 --> 01:57:13,060
school.

2492
01:57:13,060 --> 01:57:16,050
I think he's the only professor
with full appointments

2493
01:57:16,050 --> 01:57:17,380
in both schools.

2494
01:57:17,380 --> 01:57:21,120
So you'll have to get him
to talk during the semester

2495
01:57:21,120 --> 01:57:23,650
about being this kind of bridge.

2496
01:57:23,650 --> 01:57:25,970
But during the
interview, you said

2497
01:57:25,970 --> 01:57:28,610
STS is not a discipline
for people trying

2498
01:57:28,610 --> 01:57:30,820
to escape science
and engineering.

2499
01:57:30,820 --> 01:57:34,620
It's really about
pulling them together.

2500
01:57:34,620 --> 01:57:37,100
People talked about
their backgrounds.

2501
01:57:37,100 --> 01:57:38,890
Lots of them were tinkerers.

2502
01:57:38,890 --> 01:57:41,040
There are lots of good
stories about that.

2503
01:57:41,040 --> 01:57:44,630
A lot of them did ham radio.

2504
01:57:44,630 --> 01:57:49,750
Even the women who came-- as
a young girl, Brit d'Arbeloff,

2505
01:57:49,750 --> 01:57:53,040
who holds a master's degree in
mechanical engineering from MIT

2506
01:57:53,040 --> 01:57:55,890
and is a life member
of the MIT Corporation,

2507
01:57:55,890 --> 01:57:59,450
her late husband was chairman
of MIT's Corporation,

2508
01:57:59,450 --> 01:58:02,330
founded a big company
called Teradyne.

2509
01:58:02,330 --> 01:58:05,870
But when she was a
little girl, her father

2510
01:58:05,870 --> 01:58:10,160
was an engineer at this
appliance company in Chicago.

2511
01:58:10,160 --> 01:58:14,190
And he brought home the
machines that he invented,

2512
01:58:14,190 --> 01:58:16,800
things like the mix master.

2513
01:58:16,800 --> 01:58:20,180
He worked on the hair
dryer and the toaster.

2514
01:58:20,180 --> 01:58:21,950
So she used to play with them.

2515
01:58:21,950 --> 01:58:23,380
She got out to Stanford.

2516
01:58:23,380 --> 01:58:27,440
She said I was looking to get as
far from my parents as I could.

2517
01:58:27,440 --> 01:58:29,640
And the engineering
professors there said,

2518
01:58:29,640 --> 01:58:31,580
you don't want to
major in engineering.

2519
01:58:31,580 --> 01:58:33,520
They didn't want a girl.

2520
01:58:33,520 --> 01:58:35,330
But one of my favorite
tales that she

2521
01:58:35,330 --> 01:58:40,080
told, she had to take welding,
and foundry, and machine shop--

2522
01:58:40,080 --> 01:58:43,060
only girls at Stanford had
to wear dresses and skirts.

2523
01:58:43,060 --> 01:58:44,860
There was a dress code.

2524
01:58:44,860 --> 01:58:48,900
So she knew she didn't want
to do welding in a skirt.

2525
01:58:48,900 --> 01:58:51,900
So she used to put on her
jeans, and roll them up, and put

2526
01:58:51,900 --> 01:58:54,640
a trenchcoat over them,
so nobody could see,

2527
01:58:54,640 --> 01:58:57,950
even if it was 90 degrees
out, and go to class.

2528
01:58:57,950 --> 01:58:59,640
They didn't give
her trouble there.

2529
01:58:59,640 --> 01:59:01,892
Of course, she graduated
number one in her class.

2530
01:59:01,892 --> 01:59:04,308
PROFESSOR: I walked by the
glass lab on Saturday afternoon

2531
01:59:04,308 --> 01:59:05,183
and she was in there.

2532
01:59:05,183 --> 01:59:07,110
KAREN ARENSON: She was there.

2533
01:59:07,110 --> 01:59:10,835
She's now chair of the
Arts Council at MIT.

2534
01:59:13,600 --> 01:59:16,060
Let me get one or two
others and then-- there

2535
01:59:16,060 --> 01:59:19,650
were some incredible personal
stories in these interviews.

2536
01:59:19,650 --> 01:59:22,050
And I think the one that
move me the most was

2537
01:59:22,050 --> 01:59:26,790
Wesley Harris, who's a
professor of Aero and Astro.

2538
01:59:26,790 --> 01:59:30,195
He's now associate provost
for faculty equity,

2539
01:59:30,195 --> 01:59:32,640
as in diversity.

2540
01:59:32,640 --> 01:59:35,310
He's the descendant of
slaves in the South.

2541
01:59:35,310 --> 01:59:39,780
He grew up in segregated
Richmond, Virginia in the '50s.

2542
01:59:39,780 --> 01:59:42,430
He was a good student.

2543
01:59:42,430 --> 01:59:46,200
And in the '50s, the
University of Virginia

2544
01:59:46,200 --> 01:59:47,750
simply didn't take blacks.

2545
01:59:47,750 --> 01:59:51,180
They said go to one of the
historically black colleges.

2546
01:59:51,180 --> 01:59:53,890
One exception was
engineering because there

2547
01:59:53,890 --> 01:59:56,040
was no separate but equal.

2548
01:59:56,040 --> 01:59:58,040
So his physics
teacher in high school

2549
01:59:58,040 --> 02:00:01,480
said, you've got to go to
UVA and study engineering

2550
02:00:01,480 --> 02:00:05,650
because they've got to
see that blacks can excel.

2551
02:00:05,650 --> 02:00:08,830
So even though he wanted to
study physics, he went to UVA

2552
02:00:08,830 --> 02:00:12,320
and studied engineering
to make the point.

2553
02:00:12,320 --> 02:00:14,347
Some of this
professors, I don't know

2554
02:00:14,347 --> 02:00:15,930
if they were the
ones he had teaching,

2555
02:00:15,930 --> 02:00:22,670
but some of the professors there
threw cigarette butts at him.

2556
02:00:22,670 --> 02:00:24,300
They spit on him.

2557
02:00:24,300 --> 02:00:26,535
I mean, just an incredible tale.

2558
02:00:26,535 --> 02:00:28,080
But he had mentors.

2559
02:00:28,080 --> 02:00:30,310
And they helped him get through.

2560
02:00:30,310 --> 02:00:33,325
They pushed him on to Princeton.

2561
02:00:33,325 --> 02:00:37,360
He had an offer to come to
MIT, but his good old physics

2562
02:00:37,360 --> 02:00:40,620
teacher from high school said,
you've got to go back to UVA

2563
02:00:40,620 --> 02:00:44,360
and make a point that you can
be a professor and do it well.

2564
02:00:44,360 --> 02:00:47,890
So here he was, sort
of, pushing his life

2565
02:00:47,890 --> 02:00:51,040
in directions he probably
didn't really want to take

2566
02:00:51,040 --> 02:00:54,510
and suffering because--
to make a point.

2567
02:00:54,510 --> 02:00:57,480
It's a kind of
civil rights battle.

2568
02:00:57,480 --> 02:01:00,950
And he talks about this
during the interview.

2569
02:01:00,950 --> 02:01:02,610
It made me go back
and look-- there's

2570
02:01:02,610 --> 02:01:06,880
a big told by a guy named
Clarence Williams who

2571
02:01:06,880 --> 02:01:09,940
did a lot of interviews
with blacks at MIT.

2572
02:01:09,940 --> 02:01:13,690
I'd never read them before
I started reading them.

2573
02:01:13,690 --> 02:01:16,800
It's amazing.

2574
02:01:16,800 --> 02:01:22,870
Anyway, actually, the chairman
of the board, John Reed,

2575
02:01:22,870 --> 02:01:27,190
who I also interviewed,
who was also

2576
02:01:27,190 --> 02:01:30,480
the former chairman of
Citicorp, is an interesting set

2577
02:01:30,480 --> 02:01:32,410
of personal tales.

2578
02:01:32,410 --> 02:01:34,270
His parents were
American but his father

2579
02:01:34,270 --> 02:01:35,680
was in the meat business.

2580
02:01:35,680 --> 02:01:38,730
They lived in Latin America
most of his childhood.

2581
02:01:38,730 --> 02:01:40,950
He grew up in Brazil
and Argentina.

2582
02:01:40,950 --> 02:01:43,540
His father had gone to MIT.

2583
02:01:43,540 --> 02:01:48,220
But to ease the transition
back to the states,

2584
02:01:48,220 --> 02:01:51,160
he enrolled in
MIT's 3-2 program,

2585
02:01:51,160 --> 02:01:55,300
started at a small liberal arts
college and then came here.

2586
02:01:55,300 --> 02:02:01,260
And he describes his years
at MIT as being invisible.

2587
02:02:01,260 --> 02:02:04,280
He said I would go to classes
and go back to my apartment.

2588
02:02:04,280 --> 02:02:08,840
This is the guy who later became
head of Citicorp, head of MIT.

2589
02:02:08,840 --> 02:02:10,890
He loved physical
chemistry but was

2590
02:02:10,890 --> 02:02:14,780
too awed by the formidable
professor to even talk to him.

2591
02:02:17,340 --> 02:02:20,980
He worked at Goodyear Tire for
a year on the assembly line.

2592
02:02:20,980 --> 02:02:24,700
He had a rubber
workers union card.

2593
02:02:24,700 --> 02:02:26,720
Amazing stories.

2594
02:02:26,720 --> 02:02:28,955
When he was in the army,
he did something wrong

2595
02:02:28,955 --> 02:02:33,000
and was assigned to clean
garbage pails for three days.

2596
02:02:33,000 --> 02:02:36,830
He said, I assure you
that no one has ever

2597
02:02:36,830 --> 02:02:38,890
washed them as well as I did.

2598
02:02:38,890 --> 02:02:42,120
I was always enthusiastic
about whatever I was doing.

2599
02:02:42,120 --> 02:02:43,440
It's a great skill.

2600
02:02:43,440 --> 02:02:48,050
So these tales are buried
through these interviews.

2601
02:02:48,050 --> 02:02:54,250
Anyway, I'd better wind down.

2602
02:02:54,250 --> 02:02:57,510
There are more than
200 hours of video.

2603
02:02:57,510 --> 02:02:59,310
They're fascinating
in different ways.

2604
02:02:59,310 --> 02:03:04,900
They humanize this place in a
way it doesn't do for itself.

2605
02:03:04,900 --> 02:03:07,900
I don't think there are
any plans to do a book

2606
02:03:07,900 --> 02:03:10,770
or to keep going.

2607
02:03:10,770 --> 02:03:14,510
I think it would be a shame to
stop the chronicling process.

2608
02:03:14,510 --> 02:03:19,840
But I know that we'll be doing
some of your own probing,

2609
02:03:19,840 --> 02:03:22,730
maybe the oral histories
will help a little.

2610
02:03:22,730 --> 02:03:26,110
I just came from a meeting of
the council of the arts, which

2611
02:03:26,110 --> 02:03:29,170
is having its 40th
anniversary next year.

2612
02:03:29,170 --> 02:03:31,364
I'm doing a one line
commercial, if I may.

2613
02:03:34,090 --> 02:03:35,900
Part of that, we were
thinking about doing

2614
02:03:35,900 --> 02:03:39,210
a history of the council
and the arts at MIT.

2615
02:03:39,210 --> 02:03:41,970
There are lots of documents
there are living people.

2616
02:03:41,970 --> 02:03:44,730
As you all go about
figuring out what you're

2617
02:03:44,730 --> 02:03:47,500
going to delve into for your
projects later, if any of you

2618
02:03:47,500 --> 02:03:49,605
like the arts, this
would be a fun topic.

2619
02:03:49,605 --> 02:03:51,690
And we'd love to
have one or more

2620
02:03:51,690 --> 02:03:54,910
of you do a history of
the council for the arts.

2621
02:03:54,910 --> 02:03:56,590
And we'd feature it next year.

2622
02:03:59,214 --> 02:04:01,380
I don't know if there's any
time left for questions,

2623
02:04:01,380 --> 02:04:02,770
but if there are.

2624
02:04:02,770 --> 02:04:04,180
PROFESSOR: I want to take
a little time for questions

2625
02:04:04,180 --> 02:04:06,300
but I also want to play this
little farm video they made.

2626
02:04:06,300 --> 02:04:07,925
KAREN ARENSON: Oh,
that's a wonderful--

2627
02:04:10,310 --> 02:04:12,282
PROFESSOR: I'll show you,
you can look yourself

2628
02:04:12,282 --> 02:04:13,990
at the interface
because you can actually

2629
02:04:13,990 --> 02:04:17,500
search through-- you can do text
searches of all the interviews

2630
02:04:17,500 --> 02:04:18,580
altogether.

2631
02:04:18,580 --> 02:04:21,550
And you can search on a
particular keyword or topic.

2632
02:04:21,550 --> 02:04:23,730
And then it'll also take
you right to that point

2633
02:04:23,730 --> 02:04:25,660
in the video, of any video.

2634
02:04:25,660 --> 02:04:30,690
And the video guys just
searched on the word farm.

2635
02:04:30,690 --> 02:04:33,200
And from that little search,
they made this a little video.

2636
02:04:33,200 --> 02:04:35,058
KAREN ARENSON: The first
guy is Bill Pounds,

2637
02:04:35,058 --> 02:04:37,433
who I was telling you about,
the former dean of the Sloan

2638
02:04:37,433 --> 02:04:38,971
school and Rockefeller.

2639
02:04:38,971 --> 02:04:41,515
They don't identify him.

2640
02:04:41,515 --> 02:04:42,820
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

2641
02:04:42,820 --> 02:04:45,210
-I grew up in Pennsylvania.

2642
02:04:45,210 --> 02:04:48,860
And I have the distinction of
having been born on a farm.

2643
02:04:48,860 --> 02:04:50,030
-I grew up on a farm.

2644
02:04:50,030 --> 02:04:51,745
-So I was born on a
farm, if you will.

2645
02:04:51,745 --> 02:04:54,000
-I grew up in Montana.

2646
02:04:54,000 --> 02:04:54,950
I'm a cowboy at heart.

2647
02:04:54,950 --> 02:04:56,250
-Father was a farmer.

2648
02:04:56,250 --> 02:05:00,400
-We were in Sunbury, PA,
which is a rural community,

2649
02:05:00,400 --> 02:05:01,560
farming community.

2650
02:05:01,560 --> 02:05:04,920
-When my parents were
about 20 years old,

2651
02:05:04,920 --> 02:05:06,690
they decided to
live a simpler life.

2652
02:05:06,690 --> 02:05:10,520
And they basically moved
to rural West Virginia

2653
02:05:10,520 --> 02:05:12,980
as a way of going
back to the land.

2654
02:05:12,980 --> 02:05:15,920
-I rode and trained
horses as a child.

2655
02:05:15,920 --> 02:05:19,900
-Well, I was brought up in
farm country of Pennsylvania.

2656
02:05:19,900 --> 02:05:22,400
And I had my share of work
picking tomatoes and doing

2657
02:05:22,400 --> 02:05:23,350
farm work.

2658
02:05:23,350 --> 02:05:25,750
-So I grew up in
the bush, very much.

2659
02:05:25,750 --> 02:05:28,790
I come from a fifth
generation Australian family

2660
02:05:28,790 --> 02:05:31,380
and always very
much in the bush.

2661
02:05:31,380 --> 02:05:35,440
-Between the time
I was 17 months old

2662
02:05:35,440 --> 02:05:40,190
and five or six years
old, I spent on a farm.

2663
02:05:40,190 --> 02:05:43,140
-So we went to Idaho when
I was nine years old.

2664
02:05:43,140 --> 02:05:45,420
And we settled in a
little farming village.

2665
02:05:45,420 --> 02:05:47,810
-We lived on a mini farm.

2666
02:05:47,810 --> 02:05:50,810
-Well, I was born
on a cattle ranch,

2667
02:05:50,810 --> 02:05:54,167
spent my youth on
a cattle ranch.

2668
02:05:54,167 --> 02:05:55,875
-I think it had an
influence in the sense

2669
02:05:55,875 --> 02:05:57,400
that farmers are entrepreneurs.

2670
02:05:57,400 --> 02:05:59,820
And they are their own boss.

2671
02:05:59,820 --> 02:06:02,880
And so I think that's sort
of settled into my psyche.

2672
02:06:02,880 --> 02:06:04,100
-Hard work.

2673
02:06:04,100 --> 02:06:06,890
You learn how to
focus on a farm.

2674
02:06:06,890 --> 02:06:09,150
-People in the cities
romanticize the bush

2675
02:06:09,150 --> 02:06:12,380
in the same way that Americans
romanticize the west.

2676
02:06:12,380 --> 02:06:14,270
It's not to be
romanticized, actually,

2677
02:06:14,270 --> 02:06:15,770
it's a pretty tough
and rough place.

2678
02:06:15,770 --> 02:06:17,186
-It is kind of
strange for someone

2679
02:06:17,186 --> 02:06:20,090
to grow up in a house with
not a lot of technology

2680
02:06:20,090 --> 02:06:22,850
to become a faculty
member at MIT.

2681
02:06:22,850 --> 02:06:24,880
But I became an
engineer, in part,

2682
02:06:24,880 --> 02:06:29,430
because I was good at math,
and I liked problem solving.

2683
02:06:29,430 --> 02:06:32,910
But I think the childhood
has influenced me

2684
02:06:32,910 --> 02:06:36,130
in terms of how I
bias technologies.

2685
02:06:36,130 --> 02:06:38,840
That is, I give
value to technologies

2686
02:06:38,840 --> 02:06:41,830
that are maybe simpler or local.

2687
02:06:41,830 --> 02:06:47,545
And I think that does come out
of my research and my work.

2688
02:06:47,545 --> 02:06:49,525
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]

2689
02:06:49,525 --> 02:06:51,986
KAREN ARENSON: So, if you
go on the MIT 150 website,

2690
02:06:51,986 --> 02:06:55,010
there's something called
Infinite History, which

2691
02:06:55,010 --> 02:06:57,316
has the 100 oral histories.

2692
02:06:57,316 --> 02:06:58,770
There's a separate
little category

2693
02:06:58,770 --> 02:07:02,810
called Multimedia, which is
where this is tucked away,

2694
02:07:02,810 --> 02:07:05,700
way at the bottom of
the right hand column.

2695
02:07:05,700 --> 02:07:09,640
It's a bunch of videos that
include some oral history

2696
02:07:09,640 --> 02:07:13,561
snippets, which this
was, and other stuff.

2697
02:07:13,561 --> 02:07:15,310
PROFESSOR: If we have
the right interface,

2698
02:07:15,310 --> 02:07:17,730
and I talked to the company to
do that, I would love to have,

2699
02:07:17,730 --> 02:07:19,104
if you wanted,
for an assignment,

2700
02:07:19,104 --> 02:07:21,310
to make little videos
like that snipping

2701
02:07:21,310 --> 02:07:22,632
from these oral histories.

2702
02:07:22,632 --> 02:07:25,090
But at the moment, we don't
quite have the interface to it.

2703
02:07:25,090 --> 02:07:25,890
KAREN ARENSON: That
would be fabulous.

2704
02:07:25,890 --> 02:07:28,098
PROFESSOR: But let's have
a few minutes for questions

2705
02:07:28,098 --> 02:07:31,880
before we're all
done or comments.

2706
02:07:36,870 --> 02:07:37,995
KAREN ARENSON: Three hours.

2707
02:07:37,995 --> 02:07:38,495
Yeah.

2708
02:07:38,495 --> 02:07:40,845
AUDIENCE: You said you
did 40 of the interviews,

2709
02:07:40,845 --> 02:07:43,230
and there are 100 or so.

2710
02:07:43,230 --> 02:07:44,230
KAREN ARENSON: I did 40.

2711
02:07:44,230 --> 02:07:45,905
AUDIENCE: So who
did the other 60?

2712
02:07:45,905 --> 02:07:48,530
KAREN ARENSON: There were
actually four other people,

2713
02:07:48,530 --> 02:07:54,010
a graduate of MIT, he had been
an undergraduate in engineering

2714
02:07:54,010 --> 02:07:57,040
and STS, did the
first dozen or so

2715
02:07:57,040 --> 02:07:59,510
as a kind of feasibility study.

2716
02:07:59,510 --> 02:08:02,930
And then John
Hockenberry, the NPR guy,

2717
02:08:02,930 --> 02:08:05,920
got pulled in to do the project.

2718
02:08:05,920 --> 02:08:08,650
And he probably did 8 or 10
before he went out the door.

2719
02:08:08,650 --> 02:08:11,990
He came back and
did one or two more.

2720
02:08:11,990 --> 02:08:16,000
They had hired a local
journalist, Toby Smith,

2721
02:08:16,000 --> 02:08:21,480
and she did, I think,
40, 45 of them.

2722
02:08:21,480 --> 02:08:24,870
And them one of the guys in
the video lab, Larry Gallagher,

2723
02:08:24,870 --> 02:08:27,320
did a handful.

2724
02:08:27,320 --> 02:08:30,150
And the styles are different.

2725
02:08:30,150 --> 02:08:32,150
Nobody was looking at them.

2726
02:08:32,150 --> 02:08:34,410
My lead-ins are way too slow.

2727
02:08:34,410 --> 02:08:36,620
I never saw one of them before.

2728
02:08:36,620 --> 02:08:39,990
I kept thinking, these are
going into the archive.

2729
02:08:39,990 --> 02:08:43,000
I need an intro to say, why
are we talking to this person.

2730
02:08:43,000 --> 02:08:45,210
So I have pretty
substantial intros,

2731
02:08:45,210 --> 02:08:48,460
and I talk way too slowly.

2732
02:08:48,460 --> 02:08:52,887
But I had no idea until January
7, which is a real shame.

2733
02:08:52,887 --> 02:08:53,970
I'd love to rerecord them.

2734
02:08:57,460 --> 02:09:01,330
But Hockenberry's are more
like radio interviews.

2735
02:09:01,330 --> 02:09:04,080
Toby pretty much starts
with where were you born?

2736
02:09:04,080 --> 02:09:05,350
How did you grow up?

2737
02:09:05,350 --> 02:09:09,310
So anyway, there are
several different styles--

2738
02:09:09,310 --> 02:09:10,070
probably good.

2739
02:09:13,430 --> 02:09:13,930
Any other?

2740
02:09:17,167 --> 02:09:19,500
AUDIENCE: You said you did
economics when you were here?

2741
02:09:19,500 --> 02:09:21,300
So for people like
yourself, probably

2742
02:09:21,300 --> 02:09:24,270
the majority of graduates,
who do something completely

2743
02:09:24,270 --> 02:09:27,660
different than what
they studied, like,

2744
02:09:27,660 --> 02:09:30,527
is there sort of a general
thing that you still

2745
02:09:30,527 --> 02:09:32,235
retain from your
undergraduate education?

2746
02:09:32,235 --> 02:09:33,720
I mean, obviously,
you don't really

2747
02:09:33,720 --> 02:09:36,250
use economics day-to-day.

2748
02:09:36,250 --> 02:09:38,290
What are the basic
things that people

2749
02:09:38,290 --> 02:09:41,130
who go on to do different
things keep from MIT?

2750
02:09:44,010 --> 02:09:45,712
KAREN ARENSON: You
mean just in general?

2751
02:09:45,712 --> 02:09:47,670
AUDIENCE: Yeah, was it
a complete wast of time?

2752
02:09:47,670 --> 02:09:50,800
KAREN ARENSON: Lots of people
go into law, medicine, business,

2753
02:09:50,800 --> 02:09:54,590
a few people go into
journalism, not very many.

2754
02:09:54,590 --> 02:09:59,170
I did economics and finance
journalism for 35 years

2755
02:09:59,170 --> 02:10:03,310
before I did higher ed, so I was
using my economics background.

2756
02:10:03,310 --> 02:10:04,970
I actually went back
to school and took

2757
02:10:04,970 --> 02:10:08,340
finance, and accounting,
and financial institutions

2758
02:10:08,340 --> 02:10:10,890
because I realized there
was a certain amount I just

2759
02:10:10,890 --> 02:10:13,410
didn't know.

2760
02:10:13,410 --> 02:10:17,580
But I did use my
economics background.

2761
02:10:17,580 --> 02:10:21,590
And as a journalist,
a lot of journalists

2762
02:10:21,590 --> 02:10:24,280
come from being English majors.

2763
02:10:24,280 --> 02:10:26,790
Some of them are
journalism majors.

2764
02:10:26,790 --> 02:10:29,000
There aren't very
many economics majors,

2765
02:10:29,000 --> 02:10:30,990
but I was very analytical.

2766
02:10:30,990 --> 02:10:33,650
So they all learned
how to write.

2767
02:10:33,650 --> 02:10:35,090
I learned how to
look at numbers,

2768
02:10:35,090 --> 02:10:37,180
and we sort of came
together in the middle.

2769
02:10:37,180 --> 02:10:41,140
I had to learn how
to write on the job.

2770
02:10:41,140 --> 02:10:43,230
Some of them learned
to use numbers.

2771
02:10:43,230 --> 02:10:44,660
Some of them never did.

2772
02:10:44,660 --> 02:10:47,910
When I was editing, I can
remember the first couple weeks

2773
02:10:47,910 --> 02:10:51,810
I ran the Sunday business
section for the New York Times.

2774
02:10:51,810 --> 02:10:54,880
And I got a big story in, and
one of the editors under me

2775
02:10:54,880 --> 02:10:56,510
had worked it.

2776
02:10:56,510 --> 02:10:57,350
And it came to me.

2777
02:10:57,350 --> 02:10:59,080
And the story wasn't bad.

2778
02:10:59,080 --> 02:11:02,370
And at the last minute,
the graphic arrived.

2779
02:11:02,370 --> 02:11:06,370
And the story said this, and
the graphic looked like this.

2780
02:11:06,370 --> 02:11:08,030
And I said, they don't agree.

2781
02:11:10,950 --> 02:11:13,210
I killed it at that point.

2782
02:11:13,210 --> 02:11:15,390
People, a lot of
journalists, at least back

2783
02:11:15,390 --> 02:11:18,300
when I was starting
just were number-phobic.

2784
02:11:20,840 --> 02:11:24,450
But I like to look at
stories as puzzles.

2785
02:11:24,450 --> 02:11:26,700
In other words, how
did this happen?

2786
02:11:26,700 --> 02:11:28,810
How did the pieces
come together?

2787
02:11:28,810 --> 02:11:31,360
Kind of like an MIT
education trains

2788
02:11:31,360 --> 02:11:32,830
you to look at the world.

2789
02:11:32,830 --> 02:11:37,070
And that's how I looked
at it, even higher ed.

2790
02:11:37,070 --> 02:11:39,750
So it was fun.

2791
02:11:39,750 --> 02:11:41,753
PROFESSOR: Let's leave
it at that for today.

2792
02:11:41,753 --> 02:11:42,440
Please join me in
thanking Karen.

2793
02:11:42,440 --> 02:11:43,481
KAREN ARENSON: Good luck.

2794
02:11:43,481 --> 02:11:44,240
[APPLAUSE]

2795
02:11:44,240 --> 02:11:46,090
KAREN ARENSON: Thank you.