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PROFESSOR: When did
you arrive at MIT?

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00:00:30,310 --> 00:00:31,800
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: I was
a post-doc in 1980.

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PROFESSOR: Yeah, I just
remember that.

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PROFESSOR: So Ros is also a
historian of technology.

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But she practices the craft
a little different

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than David and I do.

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She focuses on the cultural
side of things and is an

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expert in literature and what
writers have said about

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00:00:50,860 --> 00:00:55,210
technological change
and has written a

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00:00:55,210 --> 00:00:56,580
lot about those subjects.

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00:00:56,580 --> 00:01:00,110
But also, she served
as the dean of

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undergraduate education.

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00:01:01,620 --> 00:01:03,500
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: And
student affairs.

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00:01:03,500 --> 00:01:04,220
I did both jobs.

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00:01:04,220 --> 00:01:06,060
PROFESSOR: I didn't know
if I had the title.

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00:01:06,060 --> 00:01:09,085
There was one time when you
didn't have two deans.

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You didn't a dean for
residential life.

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You had them combined
in one office.

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And she got stuck with that
job, which is as you might

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00:01:17,940 --> 00:01:19,320
imagine, is a lot of work.

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00:01:19,320 --> 00:01:21,820
And so Ross did that
for at least six--

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00:01:21,820 --> 00:01:22,420
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Five years.

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PROFESSOR: Five years.

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So that's been a big
item on her agenda.

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00:01:26,330 --> 00:01:28,690
And now, she's back
in the department.

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And today, she's going to talk
about chemical engineering

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00:01:31,690 --> 00:01:35,370
basically, in the early
20th century.

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00:01:35,370 --> 00:01:37,600
And this is extremely
interesting.

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00:01:37,600 --> 00:01:41,110
She gave a lecture about
it last year.

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00:01:41,110 --> 00:01:43,410
Because her grandfather
was Warren K. Lewis.

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00:01:46,060 --> 00:01:48,610
If any of are familiar with the
"Lewis Report" of the late

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00:01:48,610 --> 00:01:52,340
1940s, that's the report that in
effect that established the

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00:01:52,340 --> 00:01:55,320
School of Humanities and
Social Sciences.

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00:01:55,320 --> 00:02:00,460
But here's a chemical engineer
who is a very much involved

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00:02:00,460 --> 00:02:05,250
and looking at all aspects of
life at MIT and coming up with

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00:02:05,250 --> 00:02:06,480
this report.

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00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:09,340
And as they say, the
rest is history.

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00:02:09,340 --> 00:02:13,070
So Ros has a long lineage here,
that your grandfather

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00:02:13,070 --> 00:02:14,990
goes back to the early
1900s, I would say.

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00:02:14,990 --> 00:02:16,280
Didn't he get here--

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00:02:16,280 --> 00:02:17,665
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: He
was class of '05.

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00:02:17,665 --> 00:02:17,970
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

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00:02:17,970 --> 00:02:20,820
So she's going to talk
about this area.

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00:02:20,820 --> 00:02:23,380
And she's brought some very
interesting materials I'm

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anxious to look at.

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00:02:24,540 --> 00:02:26,680
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: So I wanted
to do something new this time.

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And that's why in the
last hour, I went

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00:02:29,380 --> 00:02:31,790
though my Lewis box.

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00:02:31,790 --> 00:02:34,800
Archives are just
boxes of stuff.

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00:02:34,800 --> 00:02:37,890
This is from my attic.

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And the library's is just
not that different.

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00:02:40,160 --> 00:02:43,680
And I pulled out some little
treasures, at least I think

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00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:46,750
they're treasures, that will
give you a flavor of what

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00:02:46,750 --> 00:02:50,590
archives are like and when
you're doing history, what you

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learn from archives that you
don't learn online, can't

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learn online.

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I may overstate that.

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00:02:58,090 --> 00:02:59,200
I may take that back.

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But I'll stand by it for
a talking point.

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00:03:02,750 --> 00:03:07,960
So I'm going to start with
giving you an overview of

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00:03:07,960 --> 00:03:12,270
intertwined biography of Warren
K. Lewis and of the

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world here in the Boston area,
Cambridge, and MIT

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specifically, as they
intertwined.

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00:03:22,100 --> 00:03:26,430
And in discussing afterwards, we
can talk about him, we can

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00:03:26,430 --> 00:03:28,395
talk about chemical
engineering.

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00:03:28,395 --> 00:03:31,860
We can also talk about
deanly things.

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If you're interested in student
life history, I've

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00:03:35,920 --> 00:03:41,030
done a little boning up on that
for a documentary that

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was being shot last week
about the evolution of

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student life at MIT.

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So I sort of refreshed my memory
about some points on

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that topic.

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So we talk about anything
you want to talk about.

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But first of all, let me give
you some what my grandfather

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used to say, you want to put
the fodder down where the

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calves can get at it.

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00:04:05,170 --> 00:04:06,780
So I'm going to put
out some fodder.

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Fodder is food, so cow food.

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00:04:09,920 --> 00:04:12,600
They say you've got
to put it down.

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So I'm putting it down.

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And we'll chew on this
together and then see

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where it takes us.

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00:04:17,910 --> 00:04:24,550
So this is this kind of
biographical history of

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chemical engineering at MIT.

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I remember my grandfather
sitting in the living room

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00:04:33,320 --> 00:04:36,380
holding forth, as he was
wont to do, in Newton,

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00:04:36,380 --> 00:04:37,250
Massachusetts.

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00:04:37,250 --> 00:04:42,070
This is where he lived with my
grandmother and mother and

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00:04:42,070 --> 00:04:44,430
three other siblings.

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00:04:44,430 --> 00:04:47,490
He was a boarder in
the household

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00:04:47,490 --> 00:04:48,840
and married the daughter.

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00:04:48,840 --> 00:04:51,700
And this is a little part
history right there.

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00:04:54,330 --> 00:04:57,040
Most MIT students, there
weren't residences.

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00:04:57,040 --> 00:05:01,100
So you boarded with families or
you were in a fraternity.

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00:05:01,100 --> 00:05:04,250
So boarding was very common.

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Let me just me just mention
something about his family.

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00:05:06,390 --> 00:05:07,990
You see his dates.

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00:05:07,990 --> 00:05:23,300
His father was born in 1845,
in Laurel, Delaware.

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00:05:23,300 --> 00:05:28,940
And his father, my grandfather's
grandfather, had

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00:05:28,940 --> 00:05:35,010
been born in the kind of,
well, mid to late 1700s.

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He had three wives.

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00:05:37,120 --> 00:05:40,510
My grandfather's father
was the last child

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00:05:40,510 --> 00:05:41,880
of the third wife.

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00:05:41,880 --> 00:05:46,303
So there's a huge gap in the
half-brothers, between Henry

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00:05:46,303 --> 00:05:50,180
Clay Lewis, Henry Clay Lewis,
that's the name of my

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00:05:50,180 --> 00:05:55,800
grandfather's father, and the
first wife's, first child.

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00:05:55,800 --> 00:05:56,790
Many of these children died.

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00:05:56,790 --> 00:06:01,160
But this is just a part of
history, the fact that if I go

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00:06:01,160 --> 00:06:03,690
from my grandfather, to his
father, to his father, I'm

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00:06:03,690 --> 00:06:06,730
back to the Revolutionary War.

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00:06:06,730 --> 00:06:11,580
Because his grandfather had a
brother who died in a prison

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00:06:11,580 --> 00:06:14,590
ship, moored in the Hudson
River during the

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00:06:14,590 --> 00:06:15,950
Revolutionary War.

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00:06:15,950 --> 00:06:19,450
So it's just amazing to me that
you just take a few steps

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00:06:19,450 --> 00:06:22,230
and you're back in
time, like that.

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00:06:22,230 --> 00:06:23,270
This is Delaware.

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00:06:23,270 --> 00:06:25,650
Delaware was a slave state.

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It was a slave-owning family.

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00:06:28,690 --> 00:06:32,500
Also an abolitionist family,
which is a strange

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00:06:32,500 --> 00:06:34,090
combination.

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00:06:34,090 --> 00:06:37,130
But it's one of those, it's a
nice idea, but not until I die

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00:06:37,130 --> 00:06:38,830
will I free my slaves, family.

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00:06:38,830 --> 00:06:40,320
And that's what happened.

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But his father was one of the
two votes for Abraham Lincoln

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00:06:45,320 --> 00:06:48,360
in his county in Delaware
in 1860.

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00:06:48,360 --> 00:06:51,455
And his father--

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God, these dates don't
seem right.

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00:06:53,350 --> 00:06:56,330
Because if his father
is born in 18--

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00:06:56,330 --> 00:06:56,760
OK.

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00:06:56,760 --> 00:07:02,890
It was his grandfather, his last
vote was for Abe Lincoln,

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00:07:02,890 --> 00:07:07,370
that's it, in Laurel,
Delaware.

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00:07:07,370 --> 00:07:10,350
If you look at the history of
slavery in Laurel, what's

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00:07:10,350 --> 00:07:14,810
fascinating is that next door
was Maryland, where slaves

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00:07:14,810 --> 00:07:16,680
could be traded, but
not in Delaware,

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00:07:16,680 --> 00:07:17,530
after a certain date.

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00:07:17,530 --> 00:07:18,440
You may know that.

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00:07:18,440 --> 00:07:20,460
But in Delaware, you could
hold slaves, but you

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00:07:20,460 --> 00:07:22,000
couldn't sell them.

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00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:26,430
So there's a huge kidnapping
ring, where people from

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00:07:26,430 --> 00:07:29,490
Maryland would go just over the
border to Laurel, kidnap

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00:07:29,490 --> 00:07:34,010
either free blacks or slaves,
take them back to Maryland,

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00:07:34,010 --> 00:07:36,720
where they could be sold
for a huge profit.

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00:07:36,720 --> 00:07:39,270
Because at that time, they could
still be sold to other

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00:07:39,270 --> 00:07:40,900
parts of the United States.

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So Delaware, Laurel was the
site of the Patty Cannon

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kidnapping ring, which is
a fascinating story.

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00:07:50,820 --> 00:07:53,010
But it's not the story
I'm here to tell.

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00:07:53,010 --> 00:07:55,830
But it does give context.

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00:07:55,830 --> 00:07:57,160
This is a farm boy.

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00:07:57,160 --> 00:08:02,090
Kenny was raised on the farm
in Laurel, Delaware.

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00:08:02,090 --> 00:08:07,090
Expecting to say on the farm,
and his life, he got hijacked

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00:08:07,090 --> 00:08:08,650
by the 20th century.

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00:08:08,650 --> 00:08:13,130
These are just some more
pictures holding forth.

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00:08:13,130 --> 00:08:17,100
That's a very familiar
pose, very familiar.

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00:08:17,100 --> 00:08:17,320
PROFESSOR: You know it well.

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00:08:17,320 --> 00:08:18,060
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Yeah.

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00:08:18,060 --> 00:08:23,540
I mean as a granddaughter,
you knew this guy.

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00:08:23,540 --> 00:08:26,300
Students were terrified of him
because he'd get you up here.

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00:08:26,300 --> 00:08:28,690
And you'd start doing something
on the board.

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00:08:28,690 --> 00:08:29,560
And you wouldn't know
what you were doing

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00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:31,170
and he would pounce.

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00:08:31,170 --> 00:08:35,289
But as a granddaughter, it was
just a very affectionate

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00:08:35,289 --> 00:08:36,630
relationship.

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00:08:36,630 --> 00:08:38,789
I was aware how much he
terrified other people.

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00:08:38,789 --> 00:08:41,460
But that was not my relationship
with him.

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00:08:41,460 --> 00:08:46,420
That's the farmhouse, still
in a Laurel, Delaware.

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00:08:46,420 --> 00:08:48,600
It used to be a bed and
breakfast not that long ago.

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00:08:48,600 --> 00:08:50,610
I don't think it's in
business anymore.

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00:08:50,610 --> 00:08:52,110
That's my brother.

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00:08:52,110 --> 00:08:55,070
That's more Warren K. Lewis,
Jr., my uncle, and my

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00:08:55,070 --> 00:08:56,300
grandfather.

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00:08:56,300 --> 00:08:58,560
This is in 1952.

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00:08:58,560 --> 00:09:01,940
He has just sold the farm.

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00:09:01,940 --> 00:09:05,570
Heart breaking, because it had
been in the family back to the

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00:09:05,570 --> 00:09:08,140
late 1700s.

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00:09:08,140 --> 00:09:15,530
But a part of the farm was cut
through by a road, the dual,

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00:09:15,530 --> 00:09:17,420
they call it there,
a dual highway.

185
00:09:17,420 --> 00:09:20,290
Route 14 cut through a corner of
the farm and he realized it

186
00:09:20,290 --> 00:09:22,780
was never going to be a
working farm again.

187
00:09:22,780 --> 00:09:25,600
And the irony is of course that
part of the reason for

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00:09:25,600 --> 00:09:29,890
putting in that highway is that
DuPont had established

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00:09:29,890 --> 00:09:32,250
big factories in northern
Delaware.

190
00:09:32,250 --> 00:09:35,460
And there's more commuter
traffic from south to north.

191
00:09:35,460 --> 00:09:38,400
So chemical engineering,
in a sense,

192
00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:39,820
destroyed the family farm.

193
00:09:39,820 --> 00:09:41,540
And I say there's
a sort of irony.

194
00:09:41,540 --> 00:09:43,240
There's quite a bit
of irony there.

195
00:09:43,240 --> 00:09:47,130
Not to mention the fact that the
whole automobile age was

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00:09:47,130 --> 00:09:51,280
in part made possible through
new methods of refining

197
00:09:51,280 --> 00:09:54,480
petroleum, using catalytic
cracking, that my grandfather

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00:09:54,480 --> 00:09:56,020
directly worked on.

199
00:09:56,020 --> 00:09:58,330
This is not the best-- but this
is the Eastern Shore,

200
00:09:58,330 --> 00:09:59,310
this peninsula.

201
00:09:59,310 --> 00:10:01,280
The Chesapeake Bay is here.

202
00:10:01,280 --> 00:10:03,420
So Baltimore is up
around here.

203
00:10:03,420 --> 00:10:05,790
Washington is kind of off
the map, over here.

204
00:10:05,790 --> 00:10:08,140
And Philadelphia is
to the north.

205
00:10:08,140 --> 00:10:10,080
But this is the Eastern Shore.

206
00:10:10,080 --> 00:10:14,280
And it's Virginia down here.

207
00:10:14,280 --> 00:10:15,550
You can't see the map--

208
00:10:15,550 --> 00:10:16,800
the split division.

209
00:10:21,390 --> 00:10:25,530
So last time I went, I go to
the airport in Baltimore, I

210
00:10:25,530 --> 00:10:29,390
drive over the Chesapeake Bay
Bridge, I go down to roads,

211
00:10:29,390 --> 00:10:30,900
about right in the middle.

212
00:10:30,900 --> 00:10:33,950
And that takes me two hours.

213
00:10:33,950 --> 00:10:39,325
So you go from one end to the
other in a couple hours.

214
00:10:39,325 --> 00:10:41,280
With the dual, you
go fast, yeah.

215
00:10:41,280 --> 00:10:43,460
So there is a Maryland
over here.

216
00:10:43,460 --> 00:10:45,510
Oh, you can see the
dotted line, OK.

217
00:10:45,510 --> 00:10:46,700
So this is Maryland over here.

218
00:10:46,700 --> 00:10:50,680
This is where like Dick Cheney
lives now, in Easton.

219
00:10:50,680 --> 00:10:52,915
It's very high, upper crust.

220
00:10:55,750 --> 00:10:57,300
And this is Delaware,
which is much more

221
00:10:57,300 --> 00:10:58,620
farming, much more rural.

222
00:10:58,620 --> 00:11:00,000
And then Virginia down here.

223
00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:01,010
It's pretty rustic.

224
00:11:01,010 --> 00:11:03,410
The Chincoteague ponies,
Chincoteague is one of these

225
00:11:03,410 --> 00:11:05,140
islands off of here.

226
00:11:05,140 --> 00:11:10,045
So this is a garden spot in the
18th and 19th centuries.

227
00:11:10,045 --> 00:11:14,570
It is the truck garden area
for the Philadelphia and

228
00:11:14,570 --> 00:11:20,380
Baltimore markets, raising
mainly corn, fruits,

229
00:11:20,380 --> 00:11:24,930
vegetables, peaches, tomatoes,
live stock.

230
00:11:24,930 --> 00:11:26,210
It's mixed farming.

231
00:11:26,210 --> 00:11:29,460
And I'll tell you some more
about that as we go on.

232
00:11:29,460 --> 00:11:33,230
But the reason I have this map--
this is from Bob Post--

233
00:11:33,230 --> 00:11:38,510
the railroad comes to
Laurel in 1859.

234
00:11:38,510 --> 00:11:43,650
And that opens up the whole
area to commercial

235
00:11:43,650 --> 00:11:44,940
farming much more.

236
00:11:44,940 --> 00:11:49,080
I mean it had always been
such, but even more.

237
00:11:49,080 --> 00:11:53,560
Now, my grandfather's
grandfather was a sea captain.

238
00:11:53,560 --> 00:11:54,940
Farming was his--

239
00:11:54,940 --> 00:11:57,150
that's where the wife
and kids stayed.

240
00:11:57,150 --> 00:12:00,220
But he made his money in the
trade, starting from the

241
00:12:00,220 --> 00:12:02,930
Chesapeake, doing a lot of
trade of the Caribbean.

242
00:12:06,250 --> 00:12:09,490
So that's where his
money came from.

243
00:12:09,490 --> 00:12:14,660
I mean he was a large,
established farmer and the

244
00:12:14,660 --> 00:12:15,710
state legislator.

245
00:12:15,710 --> 00:12:20,400
So he was a politician.

246
00:12:20,400 --> 00:12:26,260
But he was a well-off person
for Delaware, but still

247
00:12:26,260 --> 00:12:30,080
basically a sea captain
and a farmer.

248
00:12:30,080 --> 00:12:33,860
So the railroad comes.

249
00:12:33,860 --> 00:12:37,530
And this is sort of getting
ahead of the story.

250
00:12:37,530 --> 00:12:43,490
But my grandfather born in
1882, he goes through the

251
00:12:43,490 --> 00:12:47,370
three-year high school
in Laurel, Delaware.

252
00:12:47,370 --> 00:12:49,130
And learns everything you learn
there, because there's

253
00:12:49,130 --> 00:12:52,370
one teacher for all grades,
in one classroom.

254
00:12:52,370 --> 00:12:55,290
And his parents want him to
get a better education.

255
00:12:55,290 --> 00:12:56,640
He's an only child.

256
00:12:56,640 --> 00:12:58,590
He's obviously going to
inherit the farm.

257
00:12:58,590 --> 00:13:03,550
So they want him to go to a
better high school than the

258
00:13:03,550 --> 00:13:04,570
Laurel one.

259
00:13:04,570 --> 00:13:09,420
So his cousin, she's actually
a cousin I guess.

260
00:13:09,420 --> 00:13:13,700
He had an older female cousin
named Mary Witherby, who had

261
00:13:13,700 --> 00:13:17,410
left Laurel to teach school,
like her father, and she was

262
00:13:17,410 --> 00:13:21,200
teaching school at the Lasell
Female seminary, which still

263
00:13:21,200 --> 00:13:22,260
exists around here.

264
00:13:22,260 --> 00:13:23,540
Do any of you--

265
00:13:23,540 --> 00:13:24,290
you know what I'm
talking about.

266
00:13:24,290 --> 00:13:25,150
PROFESSOR: Oh, sure.

267
00:13:25,150 --> 00:13:27,430
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: It's
now Lasell College.

268
00:13:27,430 --> 00:13:29,420
It used to be junior college,
now college.

269
00:13:29,420 --> 00:13:33,100
Yeah, and it's in West Newton,
just a stone's

270
00:13:33,100 --> 00:13:34,270
throw from your place.

271
00:13:34,270 --> 00:13:38,110
So my grandfather was sent up
by his parents to live in

272
00:13:38,110 --> 00:13:40,190
Newton, go to high school.

273
00:13:40,190 --> 00:13:43,200
Newton High was famous even
then as a good school.

274
00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:44,770
He would board with
the family.

275
00:13:44,770 --> 00:13:47,180
But he had his cousin in town.

276
00:13:47,180 --> 00:13:49,280
And she would look after him
and make sure he didn't get

277
00:13:49,280 --> 00:13:50,510
into too much trouble.

278
00:13:50,510 --> 00:13:56,300
This house is a block away
from where I live now.

279
00:13:56,300 --> 00:13:58,380
I go there all the time.

280
00:13:58,380 --> 00:14:02,230
So that's still there, one of
the older houses in the

281
00:14:02,230 --> 00:14:02,630
neighborhood.

282
00:14:02,630 --> 00:14:04,630
So this is where he boarded.

283
00:14:04,630 --> 00:14:13,130
Now, I happen to have his diary
from his first full

284
00:14:13,130 --> 00:14:16,570
winter at Hunnewell
Avenue in Newton.

285
00:14:16,570 --> 00:14:20,460
And it starts January
10, 1898 and it

286
00:14:20,460 --> 00:14:23,970
goes through the spring.

287
00:14:23,970 --> 00:14:30,000
So I'm a little mixed up about
the timing, because I believe

288
00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:32,140
this is his second year I
believe at Newton High.

289
00:14:32,140 --> 00:14:39,000
His first year he came up, he
got an A in arithmetic, a D in

290
00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:41,350
drawing, and F's in
everything else.

291
00:14:41,350 --> 00:14:43,650
So it was not a good high school
he was coming from.

292
00:14:43,650 --> 00:14:45,200
And he really had to catch up.

293
00:14:45,200 --> 00:14:49,130
By this time, I think it's the
second year, he's got his feet

294
00:14:49,130 --> 00:14:50,520
under him and he's
doing better.

295
00:14:50,520 --> 00:14:53,790
So he's boarding in
the winter of '98.

296
00:14:53,790 --> 00:14:57,030
And I just want to read a few
little details that will give

297
00:14:57,030 --> 00:15:00,010
you a sense of what life was
like, daily life was like for

298
00:15:00,010 --> 00:15:02,250
him at that time.

299
00:15:02,250 --> 00:15:05,040
This is the Second Industrial
Revolution, is what we call it

300
00:15:05,040 --> 00:15:05,660
from up here.

301
00:15:05,660 --> 00:15:08,100
But down here, this
is what it's like.

302
00:15:08,100 --> 00:15:10,310
After school, this is high
school, he says, this is

303
00:15:10,310 --> 00:15:15,740
January 12, I went up to Lasell
and read Cicero with

304
00:15:15,740 --> 00:15:17,432
cousin Mary.

305
00:15:17,432 --> 00:15:19,976
Who's Cicero?

306
00:15:19,976 --> 00:15:21,655
What does this tell you?

307
00:15:21,655 --> 00:15:23,830
You read Cicero in Latin.

308
00:15:23,830 --> 00:15:26,260
You start with doing Cicero.

309
00:15:26,260 --> 00:15:27,770
You wind up with Cicero
and Virgil.

310
00:15:27,770 --> 00:15:31,490
So he's reading his Latin
with his cousin.

311
00:15:31,490 --> 00:15:37,740
And then she gave me a supper
of canned chicken, cocoa,

312
00:15:37,740 --> 00:15:40,400
bread, butter, crackers,
and peanut butter.

313
00:15:40,400 --> 00:15:43,040
I had a fine time.

314
00:15:43,040 --> 00:15:44,770
OK, canned chicken?

315
00:15:44,770 --> 00:15:46,470
I mean I don't have
to rub this in.

316
00:15:46,470 --> 00:15:47,360
You can figure this out.

317
00:15:47,360 --> 00:15:48,540
This is not off the farm.

318
00:15:48,540 --> 00:15:52,220
Canned chicken, cocoa, you know
we're dealing with the

319
00:15:52,220 --> 00:15:54,970
Caribbean at least, if that's
not the East Indies.

320
00:15:54,970 --> 00:15:58,450
Bread, butter, all
right, crackers--

321
00:15:58,450 --> 00:16:01,420
packaged food-- and
peanut butter.

322
00:16:01,420 --> 00:16:02,090
OK.

323
00:16:02,090 --> 00:16:06,050
So he mentions that-- at home,
he got a letter from home.

324
00:16:06,050 --> 00:16:08,810
And the letter from home says
four factories were going up

325
00:16:08,810 --> 00:16:12,230
in Laurel and vicinity
for canning.

326
00:16:12,230 --> 00:16:13,300
He, my father--

327
00:16:13,300 --> 00:16:16,840
this is my grandfather's father,
he is going to put out

328
00:16:16,840 --> 00:16:18,090
10 acres of tomatoes.

329
00:16:18,090 --> 00:16:21,620
He has only four cows now.

330
00:16:21,620 --> 00:16:24,390
So there's a lot of agricultural
history there.

331
00:16:24,390 --> 00:16:30,470
There's a new canning factory,
more tomatoes, fewer cows.

332
00:16:30,470 --> 00:16:35,310
So just to jump ahead, my
grandfather would say that he

333
00:16:35,310 --> 00:16:40,580
paid for his MIT tuition when he
got to MIT, with tomatoes,

334
00:16:40,580 --> 00:16:43,736
sold to a cannery at $4 a ton.

335
00:16:43,736 --> 00:16:46,260
PROFESSOR: Jesus, $4 a ton.

336
00:16:46,260 --> 00:16:47,430
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: $4 a ton.

337
00:16:47,430 --> 00:16:49,710
Now, he had the bright
idea, during his

338
00:16:49,710 --> 00:16:52,760
college years, of recycling.

339
00:16:52,760 --> 00:16:55,540
That is, using the tomato skins,
which are removed in

340
00:16:55,540 --> 00:16:58,320
the canning process, or they
tried to remove them, using

341
00:16:58,320 --> 00:17:02,340
those skins to feed to
the cows as fodder.

342
00:17:02,340 --> 00:17:03,390
And they tried it.

343
00:17:03,390 --> 00:17:04,200
The cows ate them.

344
00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:05,810
But then they gave pink milk.

345
00:17:05,810 --> 00:17:08,660
So it didn't work.

346
00:17:08,660 --> 00:17:11,880
OK, just a few more of
these from his diary.

347
00:17:11,880 --> 00:17:14,430
We're still back in
January 1898.

348
00:17:14,430 --> 00:17:17,170
Today, as I was walking home
from school, cousin Mary in

349
00:17:17,170 --> 00:17:19,260
the electrics--

350
00:17:19,260 --> 00:17:22,079
so what are the electrics?

351
00:17:22,079 --> 00:17:22,640
PROFESSOR: Trolleys.

352
00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:22,935
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Trolleys.

353
00:17:22,935 --> 00:17:26,530
OK, the street car suburbs--

354
00:17:26,530 --> 00:17:27,750
this is a little digression.

355
00:17:27,750 --> 00:17:32,875
But this is showing how the
electric trolley system was

356
00:17:32,875 --> 00:17:34,070
being extended at the time.

357
00:17:34,070 --> 00:17:38,080
This is the Sam Best Warner's
classic study.

358
00:17:38,080 --> 00:17:42,570
And the trolley, which I
remember from my childhood,

359
00:17:42,570 --> 00:17:45,340
near Hunewell Avenue, where he
lived, is just a block away.

360
00:17:45,340 --> 00:17:46,150
You can just walk.

361
00:17:46,150 --> 00:17:47,950
In fact, now it's
a bus system.

362
00:17:47,950 --> 00:17:49,700
But it's the same route.

363
00:17:49,700 --> 00:17:51,940
And you can get on where
we live and go to

364
00:17:51,940 --> 00:17:55,840
Fenway Park in one stop.

365
00:17:55,840 --> 00:17:57,211
PROFESSOR: No wonder you live
in that neighborhood.

366
00:17:57,211 --> 00:17:59,460
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Of
course, you got it.

367
00:17:59,460 --> 00:18:01,650
Then we went into Boston.

368
00:18:01,650 --> 00:18:04,340
Cousin Mary in the electrics,
saw me, got out and walked

369
00:18:04,340 --> 00:18:04,770
home with me.

370
00:18:04,770 --> 00:18:06,180
Then we went into Boston.

371
00:18:06,180 --> 00:18:08,050
Now, this would have been on the
train track, which is the

372
00:18:08,050 --> 00:18:10,475
other side of the hill
that he's looking on.

373
00:18:10,475 --> 00:18:11,610
Went into Boston.

374
00:18:11,610 --> 00:18:18,620
And she bought two tin basins,
a pie pan, a strainer, and a

375
00:18:18,620 --> 00:18:20,270
dozen knives and forks.

376
00:18:20,270 --> 00:18:22,830
She carried it in a mug strainer
belonging to the

377
00:18:22,830 --> 00:18:26,430
coffee pot, to fit the strainer
she brought to it.

378
00:18:26,430 --> 00:18:30,400
So she's buying a piece
for her coffee pot.

379
00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:31,912
She's buying all this
stuff, taking the

380
00:18:31,912 --> 00:18:33,610
electrics into Boston.

381
00:18:33,610 --> 00:18:35,810
So this tells you a lot
about technological

382
00:18:35,810 --> 00:18:37,900
systems of the day.

383
00:18:37,900 --> 00:18:43,230
But I think my favorite
entry from this

384
00:18:43,230 --> 00:18:49,860
diary, this is in February.

385
00:18:49,860 --> 00:18:51,450
He says, I went downtown.

386
00:18:51,450 --> 00:18:52,500
This would be Newton Corner.

387
00:18:52,500 --> 00:18:56,920
I went downtown in the evening
and rode, R-O-D-E, underlined.

388
00:18:56,920 --> 00:19:02,060
I asked a man passing, for
a ride, and he consented.

389
00:19:02,060 --> 00:19:05,220
It was the first time,
underlined, I've ridden,

390
00:19:05,220 --> 00:19:08,910
underlined, on or behind a horse
since last September,

391
00:19:08,910 --> 00:19:12,740
and I a farmer's boy.

392
00:19:12,740 --> 00:19:16,200
So there's cars, there's
trolleys, there's trains.

393
00:19:16,200 --> 00:19:18,860
But he wants to ride the horse,
because that's what

394
00:19:18,860 --> 00:19:20,570
farmers; boys did.

395
00:19:20,570 --> 00:19:21,390
There's a lot.

396
00:19:21,390 --> 00:19:23,430
I could go on and on
about what you find

397
00:19:23,430 --> 00:19:24,560
out from this diary.

398
00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:28,030
There's a lot of reading,
Cicero, Shakespeare.

399
00:19:28,030 --> 00:19:29,260
There's a lot of magazines.

400
00:19:29,260 --> 00:19:31,270
He's reading magazines a lot.

401
00:19:31,270 --> 00:19:32,260
He's going to church.

402
00:19:32,260 --> 00:19:33,330
There are church plays.

403
00:19:33,330 --> 00:19:36,110
There are glee club performances
at Lasell.

404
00:19:36,110 --> 00:19:39,170
He goes into Boston for lectures
at the temple,

405
00:19:39,170 --> 00:19:40,340
Fremont Temple.

406
00:19:40,340 --> 00:19:44,360
He goes to the Museum of Fine
Arts, still with us, discusses

407
00:19:44,360 --> 00:19:48,670
modern illustrators who
are exhibited there.

408
00:19:48,670 --> 00:19:50,770
Then cousin Mary gives
him some pictures.

409
00:19:50,770 --> 00:19:53,920
But I mean it is an information

410
00:19:53,920 --> 00:19:55,050
age, in its own way.

411
00:19:55,050 --> 00:20:00,670
It's just a different
kind of media.

412
00:20:00,670 --> 00:20:02,510
But he's very connected.

413
00:20:02,510 --> 00:20:06,900
So, for example, on January
20, he says he goes into

414
00:20:06,900 --> 00:20:09,940
Boston to hear a lecture
on imperialism

415
00:20:09,940 --> 00:20:11,580
by Dr. Lyman Abbott.

416
00:20:11,580 --> 00:20:16,140
Now why in 1898, is he going to
a lecture on imperialism?

417
00:20:16,140 --> 00:20:17,440
What's going on?

418
00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:18,690
What's the news?

419
00:20:21,150 --> 00:20:21,760
Anybody know?

420
00:20:21,760 --> 00:20:23,110
AUDIENCE: Spanish-American
War.

421
00:20:23,110 --> 00:20:24,270
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: OK?

422
00:20:24,270 --> 00:20:24,730
Which--

423
00:20:24,730 --> 00:20:26,220
PROFESSOR: He said it.

424
00:20:26,220 --> 00:20:27,400
ROSALIND WILLIAMS:
Spanish-American War, go to

425
00:20:27,400 --> 00:20:28,870
the head of the class, yeah.

426
00:20:28,870 --> 00:20:31,130
And it's interesting.

427
00:20:31,130 --> 00:20:34,660
He says the lecture was a fine
one in favor of staying to

428
00:20:34,660 --> 00:20:37,940
help them, the Filipinos in
this case, learn to govern

429
00:20:37,940 --> 00:20:38,730
themselves.

430
00:20:38,730 --> 00:20:41,670
And then he goes to another
lecture the next week, same

431
00:20:41,670 --> 00:20:44,950
topic, another speaker, who
also make good points.

432
00:20:44,950 --> 00:20:46,760
But cousin Mary said
some bad ones.

433
00:20:46,760 --> 00:20:50,080
He attacked, the second speaker,
Dr. Abbott, the first

434
00:20:50,080 --> 00:20:53,060
speaker, saying he had made some
misstatements concerning

435
00:20:53,060 --> 00:20:56,530
the arguments on Californian
annexation and made McKinley

436
00:20:56,530 --> 00:20:58,910
out as having imperial power.

437
00:20:58,910 --> 00:21:02,300
So there's debate going on.

438
00:21:02,300 --> 00:21:05,040
And then on February 7, we
received our first news

439
00:21:05,040 --> 00:21:08,360
yesterday of the Battle
of Manila.

440
00:21:08,360 --> 00:21:10,800
Reports of dead and wounded,
the gunboats

441
00:21:10,800 --> 00:21:12,360
did a fearful execution.

442
00:21:12,360 --> 00:21:14,850
Then there's Washington's
birthday soon after, the

443
00:21:14,850 --> 00:21:16,850
church bells ring all day.

444
00:21:16,850 --> 00:21:19,330
And my grandfather writes, these
are signs to me that it

445
00:21:19,330 --> 00:21:21,600
is the anniversary of the
birth of the greatest

446
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:25,180
American, underlined,
ever borne.

447
00:21:25,180 --> 00:21:26,470
OK, anyway.

448
00:21:26,470 --> 00:21:27,486
PROFESSOR: It wasn't
Abe Lincoln.

449
00:21:27,486 --> 00:21:30,045
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Um, true.

450
00:21:30,045 --> 00:21:30,820
PROFESSOR: It was GW.

451
00:21:30,820 --> 00:21:31,734
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: It was GW.

452
00:21:31,734 --> 00:21:32,191
How about that.

453
00:21:32,191 --> 00:21:32,648
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].

454
00:21:32,648 --> 00:21:34,020
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Yeah.

455
00:21:34,020 --> 00:21:34,910
PROFESSOR: Well, her--

456
00:21:34,910 --> 00:21:36,410
yeah, but her--

457
00:21:36,410 --> 00:21:38,070
it would be your great
grandfather's--

458
00:21:38,070 --> 00:21:40,840
whose name is Henry Clay.

459
00:21:40,840 --> 00:21:42,100
Now, Henry Clay--

460
00:21:42,100 --> 00:21:42,860
ROSALIND WILLIAMS:
That's another--

461
00:21:42,860 --> 00:21:43,540
yeah.

462
00:21:43,540 --> 00:21:47,470
PROFESSOR: But Henry Clay
was Abraham Lincoln's

463
00:21:47,470 --> 00:21:49,910
great idol in a way.

464
00:21:49,910 --> 00:21:53,180
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: I mean the
story of this family and

465
00:21:53,180 --> 00:21:55,710
slavery is just fascinating.

466
00:21:55,710 --> 00:21:57,010
PROFESSOR: Yeah, it's very
interesting, very interesting.

467
00:22:00,290 --> 00:22:02,850
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Well, I just
showed you this paper of

468
00:22:02,850 --> 00:22:05,470
my grandmother's, my
grandfather's wife, on the

469
00:22:05,470 --> 00:22:08,150
Negro problem in 1921.

470
00:22:08,150 --> 00:22:11,475
Because my grandfather, he
wanted to go back to the farm

471
00:22:11,475 --> 00:22:15,570
and improve race relations by
starting that farm up again in

472
00:22:15,570 --> 00:22:16,600
the right way.

473
00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:18,250
And that never happened.

474
00:22:18,250 --> 00:22:19,230
But that was the idea.

475
00:22:19,230 --> 00:22:21,110
OK, instead what happens?

476
00:22:21,110 --> 00:22:24,180
In the spring, he asked two
teachers at Newton High what

477
00:22:24,180 --> 00:22:27,400
they thought would be best for
him to do about college?

478
00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:29,295
They will think it
over, he writes.

479
00:22:29,295 --> 00:22:33,600
But the former advised either
Amherst Agricultural--

480
00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:34,160
what's that?

481
00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:35,330
PROFESSOR: New Mass.

482
00:22:35,330 --> 00:22:36,740
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Yeah, it's
the University of Amherst now,

483
00:22:36,740 --> 00:22:39,780
the Ag School-- other Amherst
agriculture, or as even

484
00:22:39,780 --> 00:22:41,330
better, tech.

485
00:22:41,330 --> 00:22:44,520
One of them mentioned
Cornell, but tech.

486
00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:45,850
Here we are.

487
00:22:45,850 --> 00:22:48,320
So he thinks about it.

488
00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:51,062
By the way, this is just a
picture of downtown Boston,

489
00:22:51,062 --> 00:22:54,010
when they take the
train in there.

490
00:22:54,010 --> 00:22:58,950
I was there Friday, meeting
my son and his girlfriend.

491
00:22:58,950 --> 00:22:59,680
It's not--

492
00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:03,280
they're not people
like I know.

493
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:05,840
And I was saying to my son, oh
gee, my grandparent's would be

494
00:23:05,840 --> 00:23:07,100
so distressed to see this.

495
00:23:07,100 --> 00:23:09,700
And he said-- he has a place
in Fort Point, he said.

496
00:23:09,700 --> 00:23:10,750
But that's up and coming.

497
00:23:10,750 --> 00:23:12,736
That needs to be [INAUDIBLE].

498
00:23:12,736 --> 00:23:15,950
And now, it's happening.

499
00:23:15,950 --> 00:23:20,620
But let me just mention, I mean
these are quick reminders

500
00:23:20,620 --> 00:23:24,270
that the occupation of
engineering was growing very

501
00:23:24,270 --> 00:23:27,040
quickly at the time.

502
00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:30,910
And that the people who went
into engineering--

503
00:23:30,910 --> 00:23:35,210
my grandfather is very typical,
in being off the farm

504
00:23:35,210 --> 00:23:36,755
and not particularly
well educated.

505
00:23:40,570 --> 00:23:45,200
This is the way for young men,
almost always young men, to

506
00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:48,310
have a professional or
quasi-professional career,

507
00:23:48,310 --> 00:23:51,270
without having to consider
postgraduate study, like law

508
00:23:51,270 --> 00:23:56,400
or divinity or medicine
required.

509
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:59,030
So here's Boston Tech.

510
00:23:59,030 --> 00:24:00,890
You must have seen this picture

511
00:24:00,890 --> 00:24:02,470
somewhat, in this class.

512
00:24:02,470 --> 00:24:06,170
Here's Trinity Church
in Copley Square.

513
00:24:06,170 --> 00:24:07,770
This is Boston Tech?

514
00:24:07,770 --> 00:24:08,860
PROFESSOR: It's Boston Tech.

515
00:24:08,860 --> 00:24:09,520
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Yeah.

516
00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:13,440
And I've seen other photos where
I can't really place it.

517
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:16,920
So I would love to see somebody
do a sort of up to

518
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:18,500
date GPS showing exactly--

519
00:24:21,330 --> 00:24:23,100
AUDIENCE: So that's
still there.

520
00:24:23,100 --> 00:24:25,690
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: That's
there, yeah.

521
00:24:25,690 --> 00:24:28,252
AUDIENCE: And then across the
street from that building is

522
00:24:28,252 --> 00:24:30,741
Brooks Brothers, on Berkeley
Street, across from

523
00:24:30,741 --> 00:24:30,970
[INAUDIBLE].

524
00:24:30,970 --> 00:24:32,586
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: This is all
one big building there.

525
00:24:32,586 --> 00:24:33,980
AUDIENCE: Yeah, that's
the [INAUDIBLE].

526
00:24:33,980 --> 00:24:35,690
PROFESSOR: There's actually a
plaque on the front of that

527
00:24:35,690 --> 00:24:36,285
office building

528
00:24:36,285 --> 00:24:38,720
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: But there was
another building, not the

529
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:40,210
Rogers Building, but
another building,

530
00:24:40,210 --> 00:24:41,430
like off to the side.

531
00:24:41,430 --> 00:24:43,244
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

532
00:24:43,244 --> 00:24:44,160
It would be in that direction.

533
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:45,670
AUDIENCE: There's a
bunch of stuff.

534
00:24:45,670 --> 00:24:49,993
Mark Jarzombek showed us a map,
and sort of to the right

535
00:24:49,993 --> 00:24:51,125
of where the photograph is.

536
00:24:51,125 --> 00:24:54,940
There's train tracks
and stuff there.

537
00:24:54,940 --> 00:24:57,930
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Now, the
steep steps, was that on this

538
00:24:57,930 --> 00:25:01,560
building, on the Rogers
Building, or the second one?

539
00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:03,460
PROFESSOR: I think
it's right there.

540
00:25:03,460 --> 00:25:04,340
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Oh, there.

541
00:25:04,340 --> 00:25:05,050
PROFESSOR: Right there.

542
00:25:05,050 --> 00:25:05,670
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Oh, OK.

543
00:25:05,670 --> 00:25:06,520
OK.

544
00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:08,930
Because again, my grandfather
had a story about a kind of a

545
00:25:08,930 --> 00:25:13,630
riot involving Harvard and MIT
students and a fire and he was

546
00:25:13,630 --> 00:25:14,720
on the witness stand.

547
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:17,280
And it had to do
with the steps.

548
00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:19,850
Some things don't change.

549
00:25:19,850 --> 00:25:21,300
AUDIENCE: Mark talked
about the difference

550
00:25:21,300 --> 00:25:21,450
between those two--

551
00:25:21,450 --> 00:25:22,840
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: These
two buildings.

552
00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:23,180
AUDIENCE: --buildings.

553
00:25:23,180 --> 00:25:25,764
But they're separated by
a couple of decades.

554
00:25:25,764 --> 00:25:29,748
But closer is a custom-built
laboratory, where you can see

555
00:25:29,748 --> 00:25:31,242
the fumes of the vents coming
at the top there.

556
00:25:31,242 --> 00:25:32,736
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Oh, that
has happened here.

557
00:25:32,736 --> 00:25:34,230
That's fascinating.

558
00:25:34,230 --> 00:25:37,880
So in the subway spot at
Kimball, it says the second

559
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:41,036
building MIT build was
a gym, a gymnasium?

560
00:25:41,036 --> 00:25:42,720
Does anybody--

561
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:44,830
I just read it there the
other day, thinking

562
00:25:44,830 --> 00:25:48,010
that's the first I knew.

563
00:25:48,010 --> 00:25:55,270
So Warren K. Lewis enters MIT
in 1901, planning to study

564
00:25:55,270 --> 00:25:58,520
chemical engineer-- excuse me,
mechanical engineering, still

565
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:02,680
the dominant engineering, kind
of the default mode.

566
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:08,310
But he had a friend, this friend
that he was boarding

567
00:26:08,310 --> 00:26:13,470
with in Newton, whose sister he
eventually married, urged

568
00:26:13,470 --> 00:26:15,110
him to try chemical
engineering.

569
00:26:15,110 --> 00:26:19,300
It seemed more interesting
and so on and so forth.

570
00:26:19,300 --> 00:26:24,940
So as you know from your
reading, something like

571
00:26:24,940 --> 00:26:27,350
industrial chemistry
had begun.

572
00:26:27,350 --> 00:26:31,480
Actually, it was 1888, I think
was the first offerings in

573
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:33,020
industrial chemistry.

574
00:26:33,020 --> 00:26:35,090
And by 1893, there was a lab.

575
00:26:35,090 --> 00:26:38,060
This is sort of like the
first start of chemical

576
00:26:38,060 --> 00:26:39,290
engineering at MIT.

577
00:26:39,290 --> 00:26:41,110
But then because of deaths and

578
00:26:41,110 --> 00:26:43,400
departures, it sort of declined.

579
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:47,480
But just when my grandfather's
was entering, actually in

580
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:49,980
1903, this is when Walker
comes back.

581
00:26:49,980 --> 00:26:52,110
And Noyes had been there
for a couple years.

582
00:26:52,110 --> 00:26:54,770
So it's sort of like a
false start early on.

583
00:26:54,770 --> 00:26:57,740
And then it kind of
restarted around

584
00:26:57,740 --> 00:26:59,260
the turn of the century.

585
00:26:59,260 --> 00:27:04,710
And this is something that he
wrote many years later, that I

586
00:27:04,710 --> 00:27:08,800
think captures the overall
feeling of the time.

587
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:12,070
Lewis wrote, the stimulus of
these concepts, and he's

588
00:27:12,070 --> 00:27:15,650
referring to unit operations
and these related concepts,

589
00:27:15,650 --> 00:27:18,610
the stimulus of these concepts
made work in chemical

590
00:27:18,610 --> 00:27:21,730
engineering at the Institute
from 1902 to the outbreak of

591
00:27:21,730 --> 00:27:26,580
World War I an inspiration for
both staff and student, which

592
00:27:26,580 --> 00:27:29,400
it is impossible to describe.

593
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:30,960
So these are happening years.

594
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:35,870
I mean the tension between
Noyes and Walker is a

595
00:27:35,870 --> 00:27:37,120
productive tension.

596
00:27:40,060 --> 00:27:43,290
They had each other
to play off of.

597
00:27:43,290 --> 00:27:44,710
And they certainly did.

598
00:27:44,710 --> 00:27:46,830
By the way, you know
Walker, that's not

599
00:27:46,830 --> 00:27:49,050
Walker, Memorial Walker.

600
00:27:49,050 --> 00:27:52,660
Walker Memorial is named after
Francis Amasa Walker, one of

601
00:27:52,660 --> 00:27:53,950
the early presidents.

602
00:27:53,950 --> 00:27:54,780
Have I got it right?

603
00:27:54,780 --> 00:27:55,610
PROFESSOR: Yup.

604
00:27:55,610 --> 00:27:57,825
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: And we're
talking about William Walker.

605
00:28:00,704 --> 00:28:02,290
It's no relation.

606
00:28:02,290 --> 00:28:04,790
So it's important to
those straight.

607
00:28:04,790 --> 00:28:09,330
So you have these two very
strong personalities.

608
00:28:09,330 --> 00:28:13,960
This is Noyes, trained in
Germany, a physical chemist.

609
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:19,400
And really brought in serious
chemistry to the program,

610
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:21,710
beginning in 1902.

611
00:28:21,710 --> 00:28:26,450
And then you have William H.
Walker, who had also been

612
00:28:26,450 --> 00:28:30,280
educated in Germany, Penn State
and Gottingen, both.

613
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:33,960
And was teaching analytical
chemistry, the partner of A.D.

614
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:37,190
Little, which was originally
Little and Walker.

615
00:28:37,190 --> 00:28:41,840
So he was entrusted with
Course 10 in 1903.

616
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:45,570
And was entrusted with building
it up into a chemical

617
00:28:45,570 --> 00:28:47,330
engineering curriculum.

618
00:28:47,330 --> 00:28:49,750
Now this, you can't read.

619
00:28:49,750 --> 00:28:53,650
But I will read to you, because
this is Walker's

620
00:28:53,650 --> 00:28:55,440
statement written years later.

621
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:56,930
This was after he
had left MIT.

622
00:28:56,930 --> 00:29:00,870
This is either from the late
'20s or early '30s--

623
00:29:00,870 --> 00:29:02,840
well, he died in the '30s.

624
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:05,210
So this is his statement of
what he was trying to do.

625
00:29:05,210 --> 00:29:07,200
It's a fascinating statement.

626
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:10,800
So I'm going to read you
what Walker wrote.

627
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:15,940
What an industry needed was not
a man who had been taught

628
00:29:15,940 --> 00:29:19,010
what the industry already knew,
but rather a man who was

629
00:29:19,010 --> 00:29:20,880
trained to do what the
industry had not

630
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:23,080
been able to do.

631
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:25,900
The ideal man for the industries
was one who had

632
00:29:25,900 --> 00:29:28,420
been given a sound knowledge
of chemistry and physics.

633
00:29:28,420 --> 00:29:31,030
And then as a part of the
curriculum, had been given

634
00:29:31,030 --> 00:29:34,560
systematic experience in the
application of this knowledge

635
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:36,980
to the solution of industrial
problems.

636
00:29:36,980 --> 00:29:39,800
That he should not be a
specialist, but a solver of

637
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:43,740
problems, any kind of problem
that industry might present.

638
00:29:43,740 --> 00:29:46,580
And then he goes on to say, this
idea met opposition, both

639
00:29:46,580 --> 00:29:48,320
from established courses
of chemical

640
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:50,525
instruction and from industry.

641
00:29:50,525 --> 00:29:53,620
And the industry thought
it was too theoretical.

642
00:29:53,620 --> 00:29:57,200
But the scientists thought it
was too industry oriented.

643
00:29:57,200 --> 00:30:02,350
So Walker is on this very nice
edge between not trying to

644
00:30:02,350 --> 00:30:03,870
give into one or the other.

645
00:30:03,870 --> 00:30:05,380
And then he goes on and says--

646
00:30:05,380 --> 00:30:07,790
this at the top of the second
paragraph, I love this--

647
00:30:07,790 --> 00:30:09,560
to prove the soundness
of this idea, I

648
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:11,760
returned to MIT in 1903.

649
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:14,810
And after a hot fight with
both the chemical and the

650
00:30:14,810 --> 00:30:17,960
engineering faculties, I
reconstructed Course X as a

651
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:21,050
general educational course
without options.

652
00:30:21,050 --> 00:30:23,480
And without options, that turns
out to be important.

653
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:25,560
So this is a feisty guy.

654
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:27,990
And I'm sure that's one reason
he and my grandfather got

655
00:30:27,990 --> 00:30:29,070
along very well.

656
00:30:29,070 --> 00:30:34,270
They were both feisty people,
very self assured.

657
00:30:34,270 --> 00:30:37,440
But my grandfather always would
say, it is Walker who

658
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:40,090
invented chemical engineering
in this country.

659
00:30:40,090 --> 00:30:43,310
He did not claim that
for himself at all.

660
00:30:43,310 --> 00:30:45,410
But again, my grandfather
studied.

661
00:30:45,410 --> 00:30:47,520
With Noyes.

662
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:49,750
You know, I was just reminding
you, this is particularly in

663
00:30:49,750 --> 00:30:51,630
Servos's article.

664
00:30:51,630 --> 00:30:55,510
My grandfather studied with
Noyes, took P-Chem from him,

665
00:30:55,510 --> 00:31:02,290
and graduating in the
class of '05.

666
00:31:02,290 --> 00:31:04,416
My grandfather's is this kind of
this grim-- he looks-- kind

667
00:31:04,416 --> 00:31:07,690
of a grim looking guy.

668
00:31:07,690 --> 00:31:08,700
And you'll see another
picture.

669
00:31:08,700 --> 00:31:10,370
I'll pass it around.

670
00:31:10,370 --> 00:31:13,440
In the spring of his senior
year, he expected to go back

671
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:16,510
to the farm, as much as you and
I expect the Sun to come

672
00:31:16,510 --> 00:31:17,190
up tomorrow.

673
00:31:17,190 --> 00:31:24,920
However, he got a job in the
lab, I think with Noyes.

674
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:29,320
And then that led to somebody,
I don't know whether it was

675
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:32,350
Noyes or Walker, one of them
suggested that he apply for a

676
00:31:32,350 --> 00:31:34,770
traveling fellowship which
was being offered.

677
00:31:34,770 --> 00:31:38,280
And it was $1,000 stipend, which
is that day and age was

678
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:40,140
a lot of money.

679
00:31:40,140 --> 00:31:42,330
A traveling fellowship,
he could go

680
00:31:42,330 --> 00:31:44,070
anywhere for a doctorate.

681
00:31:44,070 --> 00:31:46,510
And so he really was
not interested.

682
00:31:46,510 --> 00:31:50,840
But one of them basically
appealed to his competitive

683
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:54,010
spirit and kind of said well, if
you don't get it, somebody

684
00:31:54,010 --> 00:31:54,880
else is going to get it.

685
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:56,970
And $1,000 sounded very nice.

686
00:31:56,970 --> 00:32:02,545
He applied, got it and was on
his way to Breslau, in what is

687
00:32:02,545 --> 00:32:05,310
now Germany, it's kind of on the
Polish-German border, for

688
00:32:05,310 --> 00:32:07,640
graduate school the next year.

689
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:12,715
Later, he found he was in fact
the only applicant that year.

690
00:32:12,715 --> 00:32:14,200
PROFESSOR: Well, it's
interesting.

691
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:17,170
Think about what the Harvard
class of 1905, where they

692
00:32:17,170 --> 00:32:19,650
might have chosen to have
their picture taken.

693
00:32:19,650 --> 00:32:19,955
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Aah.

694
00:32:19,955 --> 00:32:22,962
AUDIENCE: I'm sure it was
not in the laboratory.

695
00:32:22,962 --> 00:32:23,950
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Yeah, yeah.

696
00:32:23,950 --> 00:32:28,938
I mean this is a good example,
where it tells you so much.

697
00:32:28,938 --> 00:32:30,930
It does.

698
00:32:30,930 --> 00:32:33,072
Began with the names
and faces.

699
00:32:33,072 --> 00:32:34,458
AUDIENCE: Books piled up
in the front of them.

700
00:32:34,458 --> 00:32:35,382
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Yeah.

701
00:32:35,382 --> 00:32:37,700
So--

702
00:32:37,700 --> 00:32:39,550
AUDIENCE: What's in the
books on the front?

703
00:32:39,550 --> 00:32:40,390
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Yeah.

704
00:32:40,390 --> 00:32:42,390
Oh yeah, that's great.

705
00:32:45,180 --> 00:32:52,200
So this is his dissertation in
German, from Breslau, three

706
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:53,910
years later.

707
00:32:53,910 --> 00:32:59,040
He wrote it in Florence, because
he thought Florence

708
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:01,040
was the most beautiful city in
the world, and why not write

709
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:02,070
your dissertation there?

710
00:33:02,070 --> 00:33:04,870
I recommend that highly,
if any of you write

711
00:33:04,870 --> 00:33:07,320
dissertations.

712
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:08,680
But this is Germany.

713
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:11,400
And just keep that in mind when
we get to World War II.

714
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:12,314
PROFESSOR: Yeah, yeah.

715
00:33:12,314 --> 00:33:13,230
AUDIENCE: World War I.

716
00:33:13,230 --> 00:33:15,820
PROFESSOR: And he was
sufficiently literate in

717
00:33:15,820 --> 00:33:17,000
German to be able to write
a dissertation.

718
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:17,440
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Yeah.

719
00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:17,740
Yeah.

720
00:33:17,740 --> 00:33:20,730
Well, he never felt his
German was that great.

721
00:33:20,730 --> 00:33:24,710
And in fact, back to Latin, a
story he tells us taking the

722
00:33:24,710 --> 00:33:27,570
train to Italy, or maybe
back from Italy.

723
00:33:27,570 --> 00:33:30,830
But in any case, he was seated
next to somebody-- maybe they

724
00:33:30,830 --> 00:33:32,220
were like Polish or something.

725
00:33:32,220 --> 00:33:34,040
But German didn't work.

726
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:35,290
The other person didn't
know English.

727
00:33:35,290 --> 00:33:37,600
So they conversed in Latin.

728
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:38,110
PROFESSOR: Is that right?

729
00:33:38,110 --> 00:33:39,250
ROSALIND WILLIAMS:
You never know.

730
00:33:39,250 --> 00:33:39,460
PROFESSOR: It's fascinating.

731
00:33:39,460 --> 00:33:41,970
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: It
may come in handy.

732
00:33:41,970 --> 00:33:44,560
So then he comes back to--

733
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:47,810
well, he has a year working
at a tannery in

734
00:33:47,810 --> 00:33:50,190
Manchester, New Hampshire.

735
00:33:50,190 --> 00:33:52,640
And as a result of that
experience, he always said

736
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:54,750
tanneries do not have
to pollute.

737
00:33:54,750 --> 00:33:57,350
It's not necessary, if
you run them right.

738
00:33:57,350 --> 00:33:59,560
And they don't have to smell
either, that's the other thing

739
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:01,720
you associate was a tannery.

740
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:06,480
So he comes back.

741
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:12,300
And you can see how chemical
engineering around 1910,

742
00:34:12,300 --> 00:34:16,489
there's this kind of reversal
of who was majoring in what.

743
00:34:16,489 --> 00:34:19,840
And this is before the war.

744
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:25,060
Because when World War I comes,
even before the US

745
00:34:25,060 --> 00:34:29,570
enters World War I, the Great
War, in 1917, there's a

746
00:34:29,570 --> 00:34:34,330
tremendous demand for
military equipment.

747
00:34:34,330 --> 00:34:39,219
And chemical engineering is
connected with gas warfare,

748
00:34:39,219 --> 00:34:42,909
which was used right near the
beginning of the war.

749
00:34:42,909 --> 00:34:47,560
It was in the spring of 1915
that chlorine was first used

750
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:51,440
on the battlefield
as a poison gas.

751
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:53,922
Chlorine is not the most
effective, by any means.

752
00:34:53,922 --> 00:34:55,679
It dissipates pretty quickly.

753
00:34:55,679 --> 00:34:59,880
But the surprise factor was such
that it really did work

754
00:34:59,880 --> 00:35:01,310
in the initial use.

755
00:35:01,310 --> 00:35:05,650
And it had a tremendous
psychological effect in

756
00:35:05,650 --> 00:35:10,340
scaring people on both sides.

757
00:35:10,340 --> 00:35:14,170
So Walker, William Walker, was
put in charge of the Edgewood

758
00:35:14,170 --> 00:35:17,710
Arsenal, once the US
entered the war, to

759
00:35:17,710 --> 00:35:19,780
manufacture toxic gases.

760
00:35:19,780 --> 00:35:24,790
And my grandfather was put
in charge of gas defense.

761
00:35:24,790 --> 00:35:27,160
So he worked on the masks.

762
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:28,460
And there's all sorts of--

763
00:35:28,460 --> 00:35:32,860
I mean this is very specialized
equipment.

764
00:35:32,860 --> 00:35:36,240
And to try to design equipment
that made it possible to keep

765
00:35:36,240 --> 00:35:39,770
fighting and yet would protect
the soldier from poison gas,

766
00:35:39,770 --> 00:35:42,276
not just the soldier but--

767
00:35:42,276 --> 00:35:45,720
do I have some of the--
the animals too.

768
00:35:45,720 --> 00:35:49,030
In fact, there's a whole long
story about the horses being

769
00:35:49,030 --> 00:35:51,520
affected by mustard gas,
which is a vesicant.

770
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:53,620
And it's a much nastier gas.

771
00:35:53,620 --> 00:35:55,680
And it would affect
the animals too.

772
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,730
So the one story that I need
to tell you about my

773
00:35:58,730 --> 00:36:05,490
grandfather and gas defense,
this made such an

774
00:36:05,490 --> 00:36:08,370
impression on me.

775
00:36:08,370 --> 00:36:09,935
We had this conversation
was I was a teenager.

776
00:36:14,990 --> 00:36:19,090
Let's see, he said there was not
a single Allied soldier--

777
00:36:19,090 --> 00:36:20,423
am I taking too much?

778
00:36:20,423 --> 00:36:20,525
PROFESSOR: No, no.

779
00:36:20,525 --> 00:36:22,360
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: It won't
take much longer.

780
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:27,570
There's not a single Allied
soldier is World War I who

781
00:36:27,570 --> 00:36:32,530
died from poison gas when they
had the gas mask and other

782
00:36:32,530 --> 00:36:34,060
equipment on.

783
00:36:34,060 --> 00:36:37,960
And I grandpa, you must been so
proud because you designed

784
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:41,840
something that was fail-safe.

785
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:43,330
It worked every time.

786
00:36:43,330 --> 00:36:48,020
And he said no, it means
I over designed.

787
00:36:48,020 --> 00:36:54,140
And what he meant was the
cost of putting on a

788
00:36:54,140 --> 00:36:55,360
mask is quite high.

789
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:57,820
It's makes it hard to breathe.

790
00:36:57,820 --> 00:36:59,310
And it does encumber you.

791
00:36:59,310 --> 00:37:04,020
So in designing the gas
mask, you have to make

792
00:37:04,020 --> 00:37:07,110
it just on the edge.

793
00:37:07,110 --> 00:37:10,210
Because then, soldiers are more
likely to put it on in

794
00:37:10,210 --> 00:37:11,660
the first place.

795
00:37:11,660 --> 00:37:15,000
So by over designing it, it
meant that he was surmising

796
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:16,650
that more people had died
but not putting

797
00:37:16,650 --> 00:37:17,890
on the mask at all.

798
00:37:17,890 --> 00:37:21,050
Because it was such
a pain to put on.

799
00:37:21,050 --> 00:37:25,910
And for an engineer to think
that way about human life, it

800
00:37:25,910 --> 00:37:29,182
just really took me aback.

801
00:37:29,182 --> 00:37:33,850
And I thought, boy, that's
responsibility.

802
00:37:33,850 --> 00:37:38,230
After he died in 1975, you clean
out the house of the

803
00:37:38,230 --> 00:37:40,370
person who has passed on.

804
00:37:40,370 --> 00:37:47,510
And down in the cellar, big
basement, in the furnace room

805
00:37:47,510 --> 00:37:48,790
there are these shelves.

806
00:37:48,790 --> 00:37:53,340
And there were all these gas
masks lined up on the shelves.

807
00:37:53,340 --> 00:37:58,450
And it turned out at the end of
the war, the Allied troops

808
00:37:58,450 --> 00:38:01,860
have given him a model of each
of the gas masks that had been

809
00:38:01,860 --> 00:38:03,760
used by the Allies in the war.

810
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:07,590
So he had this collection of
gas masks that were just

811
00:38:07,590 --> 00:38:08,770
sitting down there.

812
00:38:08,770 --> 00:38:12,325
And I called the Smithsonian and
I called the MIT Museum,

813
00:38:12,325 --> 00:38:14,410
and I said I think this
is really interesting.

814
00:38:14,410 --> 00:38:16,705
But nobody took the gas masks.

815
00:38:16,705 --> 00:38:20,606
So they have thrown out,
because I tried.

816
00:38:20,606 --> 00:38:22,550
I tried.

817
00:38:22,550 --> 00:38:24,206
AUDIENCE: You weren't tempted to
just mount them on wall in

818
00:38:24,206 --> 00:38:26,420
your living room?

819
00:38:26,420 --> 00:38:28,180
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Well,
they're odd.

820
00:38:28,180 --> 00:38:31,090
Well, I mean we'd been looking
at pictures from Japan,

821
00:38:31,090 --> 00:38:32,170
testing children.

822
00:38:32,170 --> 00:38:36,380
And when you get in a haz
suit, it's really scary.

823
00:38:36,380 --> 00:38:37,710
It's just very curious,
period.

824
00:38:37,710 --> 00:38:39,343
So no, I was not inclined
to keep them around.

825
00:38:39,343 --> 00:38:41,510
I was just surprised somebody
didn't want them.

826
00:38:44,260 --> 00:38:45,570
Well, actually now
I can go back to

827
00:38:45,570 --> 00:38:47,302
gas masks for a minute.

828
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:54,950
You've read about the tension
between Noyes and Walker,

829
00:38:54,950 --> 00:38:56,410
Walker finally leaving.

830
00:38:56,410 --> 00:38:59,410
My grandfather finally becoming
head of the chemical

831
00:38:59,410 --> 00:39:01,300
engineering department in 1920,

832
00:39:01,300 --> 00:39:03,630
known as Walker's protege.

833
00:39:03,630 --> 00:39:08,360
But also the real appreciation
for the science-based

834
00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:09,060
engineering.

835
00:39:09,060 --> 00:39:12,920
And the more I read Servos's
article, the more I would love

836
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:17,670
to look at his headship of
Course 10 in that period.

837
00:39:17,670 --> 00:39:20,240
I think it's a really
interesting story.

838
00:39:20,240 --> 00:39:20,750
I don't know it.

839
00:39:20,750 --> 00:39:24,176
But I'm almost sure
it's there.

840
00:39:24,176 --> 00:39:29,000
OK, he it comes back.

841
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:31,810
Heads the department for 10
years, but that isn't what he

842
00:39:31,810 --> 00:39:32,400
wants to do.

843
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:34,590
He's not an administrative
type.

844
00:39:34,590 --> 00:39:36,030
He doesn't like it.

845
00:39:36,030 --> 00:39:39,550
He loves teaching and he's
famous for his teaching.

846
00:39:39,550 --> 00:39:42,770
And that's where he really
made his mark.

847
00:39:42,770 --> 00:39:45,490
But he did a lot of consulting
for what was what was then

848
00:39:45,490 --> 00:39:49,640
Standard Oil in New Jersey,
Esso, Exxon.

849
00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:53,500
And one thing your articles
didn't mention I think is the

850
00:39:53,500 --> 00:39:58,160
relationship between the
university and industry

851
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:00,930
through consulting
work and how that

852
00:40:00,930 --> 00:40:02,880
fits into the picture.

853
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:05,850
And he was a great believer in
the value of consulting.

854
00:40:05,850 --> 00:40:09,890
That's how you find out what's
happening in the world and it

855
00:40:09,890 --> 00:40:10,880
keeps you on your toes.

856
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:12,820
And it's also useful
for industry.

857
00:40:12,820 --> 00:40:19,330
So he, to his death, he got a
check every month from Exxon.

858
00:40:19,330 --> 00:40:22,170
I mean it wasn't a lot,
but it was a retainer.

859
00:40:22,170 --> 00:40:23,540
And he died at what, 94.

860
00:40:23,540 --> 00:40:27,740
So they were very loyal
to him and vice versa.

861
00:40:27,740 --> 00:40:35,480
So this is a drawing of the
catalytic cracking process.

862
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:37,405
Let's see, have you been to
the MIT Museum exhibit?

863
00:40:37,405 --> 00:40:38,120
You must have been.

864
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:38,500
AUDIENCE: I have.

865
00:40:38,500 --> 00:40:39,990
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: OK.

866
00:40:39,990 --> 00:40:40,985
And you go through
the whole thing.

867
00:40:40,985 --> 00:40:43,660
And just when you're going to
leave when to go out of the

868
00:40:43,660 --> 00:40:50,820
exhibit in that back room, on
the left, is a picture of my

869
00:40:50,820 --> 00:40:54,410
grandfather and a couple other
gentlemen at a refinery in

870
00:40:54,410 --> 00:41:00,080
Venezuela where catalytic
cracking has been put into

871
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:02,000
production in 1939.

872
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:05,030
And there's a barrel
above there, an

873
00:41:05,030 --> 00:41:06,070
empty barrel I trust.

874
00:41:06,070 --> 00:41:08,120
But anyway, just to
make the exhibit

875
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:10,090
about catalytic cracking.

876
00:41:10,090 --> 00:41:14,720
But the timing, 1939, means that
once the war broke out in

877
00:41:14,720 --> 00:41:19,200
1940, the demand for aviation
fuel was huge.

878
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:22,740
I mean catalytic cracking began
as a way to get higher

879
00:41:22,740 --> 00:41:24,365
octane for automobiles.

880
00:41:24,365 --> 00:41:27,440
And it was the automobile
race that instigated it.

881
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:30,730
AUDIENCE: Does everybody know
what catalytic cracking is?

882
00:41:30,730 --> 00:41:34,130
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: So let me
give my brief, nontechnical--

883
00:41:34,130 --> 00:41:35,670
actually this is very
interesting.

884
00:41:35,670 --> 00:41:39,330
He did the work in the basement
of Building 12.

885
00:41:39,330 --> 00:41:46,120
And you need some kind
of a catalytic agent

886
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:48,560
to promote the cracking.

887
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:54,690
It's usually a powder and its
mixed in with the petroleum to

888
00:41:54,690 --> 00:41:58,730
get more higher octane fractions
or lighter weight

889
00:41:58,730 --> 00:42:01,440
fractions out of a certain
amount of petroleum.

890
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,420
So if you have the same amount
of petroleum and the cracking

891
00:42:04,420 --> 00:42:07,430
works efficiently, you get more
usable high octane fuel

892
00:42:07,430 --> 00:42:08,560
than you do without it.

893
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:10,000
So you have this--

894
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:12,588
AUDIENCE: You take crude oil,
basically, and separating out

895
00:42:12,588 --> 00:42:13,381
all the parts.

896
00:42:13,381 --> 00:42:16,330
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: It's part of
the distillation process.

897
00:42:16,330 --> 00:42:19,870
And a higher octane means you
can run engines faster and get

898
00:42:19,870 --> 00:42:23,112
more power out of them, without
knocking and so forth.

899
00:42:23,112 --> 00:42:25,880
You know when you need higher
octane, if you fill up your

900
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:28,320
car and your car starts
knocking.

901
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:30,000
That's a sign that things
are not going well.

902
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:31,090
It's true in cars.

903
00:42:31,090 --> 00:42:32,410
It's true in airplanes.

904
00:42:32,410 --> 00:42:38,850
So they were trying to blow
the catalyst through the

905
00:42:38,850 --> 00:42:41,170
petroleum stream.

906
00:42:41,170 --> 00:42:44,070
But as a pattern, it
kept settling out.

907
00:42:44,070 --> 00:42:47,340
It didn't stay mixed
in with the stream.

908
00:42:47,340 --> 00:42:50,110
So after months and months of
work, on trying to get it to

909
00:42:50,110 --> 00:42:53,640
hold into the stream, my
grandfather, who was famously

910
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:58,000
profane, said damn it,
let it settle out.

911
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:01,060
And in other words, if you let
it settle out, then you get a

912
00:43:01,060 --> 00:43:04,480
fluid bed at kind of the
bottom of the reactor.

913
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:09,360
And it mixes the fumes, the
petroleum fumes with, or

914
00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:13,165
gases, with the catalyst, better
than if you try to blow

915
00:43:13,165 --> 00:43:15,360
it along with the stream.

916
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:20,320
So it's fluid-bed catalytic
cracking that he and his

917
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:25,330
students are known for and
brought a huge fortune to

918
00:43:25,330 --> 00:43:28,300
Exxon, which is one of
the early adopters.

919
00:43:28,300 --> 00:43:31,050
What he never imagined
was that--

920
00:43:31,050 --> 00:43:33,150
again, it comes on
line in 1939.

921
00:43:33,150 --> 00:43:38,030
Within a year, the tankers are
going to Venezuela to fill up

922
00:43:38,030 --> 00:43:41,500
with a high octane aviation
fuel, going to the docks of

923
00:43:41,500 --> 00:43:44,050
Liverpool, and pumping
the fuel into

924
00:43:44,050 --> 00:43:46,080
the tanks of Spitfires.

925
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:48,740
They don't even put it
in the holding tank.

926
00:43:48,740 --> 00:43:52,670
They put it right in the
tanks of the airplanes.

927
00:43:52,670 --> 00:43:54,830
And the Spitfires go
up to do battle in

928
00:43:54,830 --> 00:43:56,760
the Battle of Britain.

929
00:43:56,760 --> 00:44:04,040
So it's a dramatic example of
what you do and then how

930
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:08,240
things happen to change the
implications of what you do,

931
00:44:08,240 --> 00:44:10,290
that are entirely out
of your control.

932
00:44:10,290 --> 00:44:12,580
That of course is also
the story of

933
00:44:12,580 --> 00:44:13,830
the Manhattan Project.

934
00:44:17,050 --> 00:44:20,060
When the Manhattan Project
got under way--

935
00:44:20,060 --> 00:44:22,030
do I have any slides
about this?

936
00:44:22,030 --> 00:44:23,540
Oh, this goes back, OK--

937
00:44:28,290 --> 00:44:33,710
basically my grandfather is
asked to head up the series of

938
00:44:33,710 --> 00:44:38,530
committees making
recommendations about the

939
00:44:38,530 --> 00:44:42,950
extraction and refinement
of fissionable material.

940
00:44:42,950 --> 00:44:46,660
In other words, the chemical
engineering problems of the

941
00:44:46,660 --> 00:44:52,590
atomic weapons, they require
high grade ore, high grade

942
00:44:52,590 --> 00:44:54,220
uranium or plutonium.

943
00:44:54,220 --> 00:44:55,220
And how do you get it?

944
00:44:55,220 --> 00:44:56,690
That's an engineering problem.

945
00:44:56,690 --> 00:44:58,450
That's a chemical engineering
problem.

946
00:44:58,450 --> 00:45:03,446
So if you go to the MIT archives
and ask for Warren K.

947
00:45:03,446 --> 00:45:07,376
Lewis material, a lot of it is
still classified from World

948
00:45:07,376 --> 00:45:10,460
War II, but there is a notebook
that he kept when he

949
00:45:10,460 --> 00:45:13,760
was going around to, trying
to figure out--

950
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:16,100
I think this is 1941.

951
00:45:16,100 --> 00:45:20,110
When was the chain reaction
started? '42, right, in Stagg

952
00:45:20,110 --> 00:45:21,070
Field, Chicago?

953
00:45:21,070 --> 00:45:22,010
AUDIENCE: Chicago?

954
00:45:22,010 --> 00:45:22,370
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Chicago.

955
00:45:22,370 --> 00:45:23,040
Was that earlier?

956
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:23,540
AUDIENCE: Earlier.

957
00:45:23,540 --> 00:45:24,075
ROSALIND WILLIAMS:
It was earlier.

958
00:45:24,075 --> 00:45:26,340
AUDIENCE: Before the
war I think.

959
00:45:26,340 --> 00:45:27,820
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: In the
middle of this notebook,

960
00:45:27,820 --> 00:45:29,420
appears that event.

961
00:45:29,420 --> 00:45:32,030
And he's going around to
DuPont, to Oak Ridge.

962
00:45:32,030 --> 00:45:35,500
He's going out to Berkeley,
Lawrence Lab, talking to all

963
00:45:35,500 --> 00:45:40,600
these people, trying to figure
out how to do the refining to

964
00:45:40,600 --> 00:45:44,400
get the material that they would
need for these weapons.

965
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:46,650
And he served on a series
of committees.

966
00:45:46,650 --> 00:45:53,550
Was gone all during the war,
kind of overseeing the

967
00:45:53,550 --> 00:45:56,790
construction and the development
of these vast

968
00:45:56,790 --> 00:46:00,872
facilities, especially at Oak
Ridge, also out in Hanford.

969
00:46:00,872 --> 00:46:04,560
AUDIENCE: If you look at the
Manhattan Project, which my

970
00:46:04,560 --> 00:46:07,194
favorite statistics would be
the size of the US auto

971
00:46:07,194 --> 00:46:11,200
industry at the time, a huge
project, less that 10% of it

972
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:14,960
is concentrated at Los Alamos
or [INAUDIBLE].

973
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:16,468
Brilliant physicists are--

974
00:46:16,468 --> 00:46:19,610
and most of it were chemical
engineering plants in

975
00:46:19,610 --> 00:46:24,362
Tennessee and in Washington
state, huge plants making the

976
00:46:24,362 --> 00:46:27,050
actual material.

977
00:46:27,050 --> 00:46:32,390
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: So he told
his wife, my grandmother, just

978
00:46:32,390 --> 00:46:33,410
don't ask where I am.

979
00:46:33,410 --> 00:46:37,410
But if you need me in an
emergency, you call General

980
00:46:37,410 --> 00:46:41,220
Groves in Washington, and gave
her the phone number.

981
00:46:41,220 --> 00:46:45,350
And again, I presume the
students have already heard

982
00:46:45,350 --> 00:46:48,850
this, but my mother was
married in 1940 and

983
00:46:48,850 --> 00:46:50,210
I was born in 1944.

984
00:46:50,210 --> 00:46:51,570
So this was kind of
like the next

985
00:46:51,570 --> 00:46:53,390
generation was coming along.

986
00:46:53,390 --> 00:46:56,807
And my mother tells me that
when she heard the Lowell

987
00:46:56,807 --> 00:46:59,620
Thomas announcement of the
bomb being dropped on

988
00:46:59,620 --> 00:47:03,780
Hiroshima, on the radio, she
said now I know where pop's

989
00:47:03,780 --> 00:47:06,490
been, all the war.

990
00:47:06,490 --> 00:47:09,380
And I'm a baby.

991
00:47:09,380 --> 00:47:15,650
And we're back to Japan
these days.

992
00:47:15,650 --> 00:47:22,335
OK, I have to think he was
deeply troubled by his role in

993
00:47:22,335 --> 00:47:24,730
the Manhattan Project because
he didn't talk about it.

994
00:47:24,730 --> 00:47:27,340
He talked a lot about World
War I and gas masks.

995
00:47:27,340 --> 00:47:30,360
But World War II, he just--

996
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:34,400
I mean I wish I had pressed
him more, but I didn't.

997
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:36,850
My mother said that
after the war--

998
00:47:36,850 --> 00:47:40,630
for example, at those days if
you got a watch, a wrist

999
00:47:40,630 --> 00:47:42,820
watch, and you wanted it to glow
in the dark, they put a

1000
00:47:42,820 --> 00:47:46,460
little radium on the dial just
to make it glow in the dark.

1001
00:47:46,460 --> 00:47:48,320
And he would scrape it off.

1002
00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:51,980
He didn't want any of
that stuff near him.

1003
00:47:51,980 --> 00:47:54,480
Anyway, so I'm surmising.

1004
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:58,830
But he chaired the Lewis
committee, and you'll hear a

1005
00:47:58,830 --> 00:48:01,460
lot more about that, kept
teaching at MIT.

1006
00:48:01,460 --> 00:48:05,830
My husband had him as a kind
of senior thesis adviser in

1007
00:48:05,830 --> 00:48:09,000
the early 1960s.

1008
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:14,450
And there's a lot of letters
that he wrote about the role

1009
00:48:14,450 --> 00:48:17,040
of the engineer and
civilization, the profession

1010
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:19,360
of engineering.

1011
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:22,090
And this quote from
the Lewis Report I

1012
00:48:22,090 --> 00:48:23,700
think really captures--

1013
00:48:23,700 --> 00:48:26,285
I mean we don't know who
actually wrote it.

1014
00:48:26,285 --> 00:48:28,640
Maybe it Morrison or somebody.

1015
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:30,850
But he really believes that.

1016
00:48:30,850 --> 00:48:37,930
He said, if I could come back,
it would be as a social

1017
00:48:37,930 --> 00:48:41,470
scientist, because that's where
the big problems are,

1018
00:48:41,470 --> 00:48:43,050
the really intractable ones.

1019
00:48:43,050 --> 00:48:45,790
I can see after World War II
why you would say that.

1020
00:48:45,790 --> 00:48:49,280
So that's the--

1021
00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:51,680
yeah, the Spring Garden
farm again.

1022
00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:52,910
OK, so back to the farm.

1023
00:48:52,910 --> 00:49:01,610
So what I did in about 15
minutes before class was just

1024
00:49:01,610 --> 00:49:03,240
go through my box of stuff.

1025
00:49:03,240 --> 00:49:05,800
And I'm just going to
pass this around.

1026
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:08,850
Obviously, just collect
it back there, when it

1027
00:49:08,850 --> 00:49:10,920
gets back to you.

1028
00:49:10,920 --> 00:49:13,240
The point is what you learn from
archives that you don't

1029
00:49:13,240 --> 00:49:17,300
learn from reading articles
or so forth.

1030
00:49:17,300 --> 00:49:20,380
Monthly Report, Laurel City
Schools, Laurel, Delaware,

1031
00:49:20,380 --> 00:49:23,560
Report of Warren Lewis, 1895.

1032
00:49:23,560 --> 00:49:26,740
This tells you sort of, not only
what his grades are, but

1033
00:49:26,740 --> 00:49:27,350
what they're teaching.

1034
00:49:27,350 --> 00:49:28,570
PROFESSOR: Is that the
original document?

1035
00:49:28,570 --> 00:49:29,740
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: That's
the document.

1036
00:49:29,740 --> 00:49:31,200
Why do I have this stuff?

1037
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:33,488
I have no idea.

1038
00:49:33,488 --> 00:49:37,130
I gave a lot of it
to the archives.

1039
00:49:37,130 --> 00:49:38,610
And they have copies of this.

1040
00:49:38,610 --> 00:49:40,850
And I kept a few original
documents.

1041
00:49:40,850 --> 00:49:42,060
There's a lot more.

1042
00:49:42,060 --> 00:49:44,840
I mean I am from a very
literate family.

1043
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:46,620
I don't know how
else to put it.

1044
00:49:46,620 --> 00:49:50,080
Now Ross Basset told you about
going through MIT yearbooks

1045
00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:52,863
and looking at where
people are from?

1046
00:49:52,863 --> 00:49:54,760
PROFESSOR: A little bit.

1047
00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:57,230
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: This is my
grandfather on the left.

1048
00:49:57,230 --> 00:50:03,320
So this is what Ross was looking
at, hometown and list.

1049
00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:05,660
My grandfather's list
is very brief.

1050
00:50:05,660 --> 00:50:09,430
But again, I just thought
you'd like to see.

1051
00:50:09,430 --> 00:50:14,780
And Breslau, here are
photographs of Breslau, where

1052
00:50:14,780 --> 00:50:19,690
he studied, got his Ph.D.
I mean it got bombed to

1053
00:50:19,690 --> 00:50:20,670
smithereens in the war.

1054
00:50:20,670 --> 00:50:22,370
None of this is here anymore.

1055
00:50:22,370 --> 00:50:26,870
But this is old Germany.

1056
00:50:26,870 --> 00:50:29,730
PROFESSOR: Did you ever go back
to try to visit there?

1057
00:50:29,730 --> 00:50:33,330
ROSALIND WILLIAMS:
Not Breslau, no.

1058
00:50:33,330 --> 00:50:35,100
I think it blew all
to smithereens.

1059
00:50:35,100 --> 00:50:36,360
PROFESSOR: Probably
nothing to see.

1060
00:50:36,360 --> 00:50:38,040
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: And I had a
couple of bigger photos, that

1061
00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:40,800
are really beauties, that I
have framed it at home.

1062
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:42,255
And here's his dissertation.

1063
00:50:42,255 --> 00:50:47,210
I'm not sure, my German
not being workable.

1064
00:50:47,210 --> 00:50:52,080
But it's signed Rosalind D.
Kenway, from Warren, July '05,

1065
00:50:52,080 --> 00:50:53,330
that's my grandmother.

1066
00:50:58,740 --> 00:51:02,410
The Tech, special chemistry
and chemical engineering

1067
00:51:02,410 --> 00:51:05,030
issue, 1910.

1068
00:51:05,030 --> 00:51:08,720
So remember that chart showing
chemistry is going down and

1069
00:51:08,720 --> 00:51:10,650
chemical-- so this is published
at that time.

1070
00:51:10,650 --> 00:51:15,070
I have no idea why I have
this, but I do.

1071
00:51:15,070 --> 00:51:18,580
And it's so interesting.

1072
00:51:18,580 --> 00:51:21,470
Few industries not founded
on chemistry, it says.

1073
00:51:24,610 --> 00:51:25,880
Now, this is a Xerox.

1074
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:30,840
This is his father basically
selling off the stock of the

1075
00:51:30,840 --> 00:51:34,220
farm, public sale of
valuable cows.

1076
00:51:34,220 --> 00:51:37,830
And this is what his father
writes in 1917, back in

1077
00:51:37,830 --> 00:51:38,930
Laurel, Delaware.

1078
00:51:38,930 --> 00:51:42,870
I have sailed life's storm-swept
sea for 74 years

1079
00:51:42,870 --> 00:51:44,880
and I am now nearing port.

1080
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:46,430
I smell the land.

1081
00:51:46,430 --> 00:51:49,430
It is wise that I should take
in-- and I can't read it.

1082
00:51:49,430 --> 00:51:51,710
But it must be take
in the sails--

1083
00:51:51,710 --> 00:51:53,250
Therefore on--

1084
00:51:53,250 --> 00:51:55,790
He's going to sell
his milk cows.

1085
00:51:55,790 --> 00:51:58,610
This is the start of the decline
of agriculture in the

1086
00:51:58,610 --> 00:52:03,350
United States right here,
the family farm.

1087
00:52:03,350 --> 00:52:07,760
This is the high school, now
Newton North, Newton high

1088
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:13,360
school kind of review
magazine.

1089
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:14,490
This is 1918.

1090
00:52:14,490 --> 00:52:17,730
A lot of young men are
going over to Europe.

1091
00:52:17,730 --> 00:52:22,490
But it talks about a Newton
high school scientist.

1092
00:52:22,490 --> 00:52:25,320
Of the many capable men on the
defense side of chemical

1093
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:28,450
warfare service, perhaps none
has contributed more practical

1094
00:52:28,450 --> 00:52:30,050
ideas that Dr. Lewis.

1095
00:52:30,050 --> 00:52:33,510
This is his high school,
hall of fame, kind of.

1096
00:52:33,510 --> 00:52:34,760
This is page 10.

1097
00:52:37,870 --> 00:52:40,150
My kids went to the
same school.

1098
00:52:40,150 --> 00:52:41,306
PROFESSOR: Newton North?

1099
00:52:41,306 --> 00:52:43,170
ROSALIND WILLIAMS:
Yeah, of course.

1100
00:52:43,170 --> 00:52:44,465
OK, this is March 5, 1920.

1101
00:52:44,465 --> 00:52:45,715
PROFESSOR: Of course.

1102
00:52:49,010 --> 00:52:50,060
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: You
got to show spirit.

1103
00:52:50,060 --> 00:52:51,660
PROFESSOR: Of course.

1104
00:52:51,660 --> 00:52:53,527
Boy if live in Newton,
there's a difference.

1105
00:52:53,527 --> 00:52:53,880
I know that.

1106
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:54,050
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: A
different Newton.

1107
00:52:54,050 --> 00:52:56,410
It matters whether it's
north or south.

1108
00:52:56,410 --> 00:53:02,170
OK, Debbie K. Lewis, required
Course 10, 1920.

1109
00:53:02,170 --> 00:53:04,770
His time here seems
very interesting.

1110
00:53:04,770 --> 00:53:06,020
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].

1111
00:53:09,330 --> 00:53:10,420
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Well,
actually I won't pass this

1112
00:53:10,420 --> 00:53:11,810
around because he-- well,
maybe I will.

1113
00:53:11,810 --> 00:53:13,270
This is Spring Garden farm.

1114
00:53:13,270 --> 00:53:15,242
I showed you the photo
actually earlier.

1115
00:53:20,720 --> 00:53:28,190
OK, here we have-- oh look,
August 5, 1946.

1116
00:53:28,190 --> 00:53:29,830
Anybody know what happened
on August 5, 19--

1117
00:53:29,830 --> 00:53:34,441
you know what happened
on August 6, 1945?

1118
00:53:34,441 --> 00:53:37,000
It's Hiroshima.

1119
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:41,880
A year minus a day later, James
R. Killian writes to Dr.

1120
00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:46,280
Compton, during the summer,
there have been a number of

1121
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:48,550
discussions of the need to
promote here at the Institute,

1122
00:53:48,550 --> 00:53:51,380
more interest in the study of
educational objectives and

1123
00:53:51,380 --> 00:53:52,340
procedures.

1124
00:53:52,340 --> 00:53:56,130
This calls for the Lewis
Commission essentially.

1125
00:53:56,130 --> 00:54:00,000
And it's a letter saying
Lewis should head it.

1126
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:02,850
And here's some people who
should be on it, and here's

1127
00:54:02,850 --> 00:54:04,400
the budget.

1128
00:54:04,400 --> 00:54:08,760
And then a second letter,
outlining in more detail what

1129
00:54:08,760 --> 00:54:10,662
the Lewis Commission would do.

1130
00:54:10,662 --> 00:54:12,680
It follows shortly thereafter.

1131
00:54:12,680 --> 00:54:17,330
Then I just have a bunch of,
again my grandfather's

1132
00:54:17,330 --> 00:54:22,000
thoughts about the history
of chemical engineering;

1133
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:25,530
engineering as a profession; my
favorite title, "The Place

1134
00:54:25,530 --> 00:54:28,790
of Engineering in Society and
Civilization." This is from

1135
00:54:28,790 --> 00:54:30,380
Tech Review.

1136
00:54:30,380 --> 00:54:32,460
And I thought you would enjoy
this title, "Chemical

1137
00:54:32,460 --> 00:54:40,220
Engineering, A New Science,"
a new science, 1953.

1138
00:54:40,220 --> 00:54:46,190
And so these are all published
in one form or another.

1139
00:54:46,190 --> 00:54:48,270
But then there are letters.

1140
00:54:48,270 --> 00:54:52,440
And there are quite a few
letters to me, to my mother,

1141
00:54:52,440 --> 00:54:56,330
to my father, when my father's
trying to figure out-- this is

1142
00:54:56,330 --> 00:54:59,960
1945 and my father notes that
at GE, so many younger

1143
00:54:59,960 --> 00:55:03,030
engineers are getting offers
from small companies and

1144
00:55:03,030 --> 00:55:04,830
should be thinking about this?

1145
00:55:04,830 --> 00:55:06,930
And my grandfather writes
this long letter

1146
00:55:06,930 --> 00:55:08,150
back, in long hand.

1147
00:55:08,150 --> 00:55:14,060
In 1970, somebody has asked
him for conversations.

1148
00:55:14,060 --> 00:55:16,560
He wants to discuss the
fundamental differences

1149
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:21,060
between Greek philosophy and
modern science on the purely

1150
00:55:21,060 --> 00:55:23,570
intellectual level.

1151
00:55:23,570 --> 00:55:25,620
And he wants me to come
up and help him write

1152
00:55:25,620 --> 00:55:26,650
something about this.

1153
00:55:26,650 --> 00:55:31,320
And this is very moving because
he says, I am getting

1154
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:38,210
older and it's hard for people
to understand me.

1155
00:55:38,210 --> 00:55:41,616
You, however, have heard enough
of it over the years so

1156
00:55:41,616 --> 00:55:43,540
you know at least
the direction in

1157
00:55:43,540 --> 00:55:44,860
which my mind is working.

1158
00:55:44,860 --> 00:55:46,170
PROFESSOR: Ah, interesting.

1159
00:55:46,170 --> 00:55:47,380
High compliment.

1160
00:55:47,380 --> 00:55:47,730
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Yeah.

1161
00:55:47,730 --> 00:55:49,275
It's a huge compliment.

1162
00:55:53,190 --> 00:55:55,920
Anyway, if you don't get
the personality,

1163
00:55:55,920 --> 00:55:57,040
you're missing things.

1164
00:55:57,040 --> 00:55:59,400
Thanksgiving dinner.

1165
00:55:59,400 --> 00:56:06,830
Actually this would be 1963,
the fall of 1963.

1166
00:56:06,830 --> 00:56:09,790
So what happened in
the fall of 1963?

1167
00:56:09,790 --> 00:56:11,375
PROFESSOR: Oh, Kennedy.

1168
00:56:11,375 --> 00:56:12,670
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: It was
right after Kennedy's

1169
00:56:12,670 --> 00:56:14,110
assassination.

1170
00:56:14,110 --> 00:56:16,250
And my grandfather
is saying grace.

1171
00:56:16,250 --> 00:56:18,890
I remember this like
yesterday.

1172
00:56:18,890 --> 00:56:22,900
He had his usual grace and he
gave thanks for the American

1173
00:56:22,900 --> 00:56:25,880
family, because in such
difficult times like these,

1174
00:56:25,880 --> 00:56:28,320
that's the rock on which the
country is founded, the

1175
00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:29,510
American family.

1176
00:56:29,510 --> 00:56:34,580
This is my then boyfriend,
between me and my mother.

1177
00:56:34,580 --> 00:56:35,920
PROFESSOR: It's not Gary.

1178
00:56:35,920 --> 00:56:39,014
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Yeah, yeah.

1179
00:56:39,014 --> 00:56:42,226
Have you see the actual
Lewis Report?

1180
00:56:42,226 --> 00:56:43,670
PROFESSOR: I have
never seen that.

1181
00:56:43,670 --> 00:56:46,260
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: It's nice,
nice binding job.

1182
00:56:46,260 --> 00:56:50,740
And this is A Dollar to a
Doughnut, which are stories

1183
00:56:50,740 --> 00:56:53,010
about my grandfather's
teaching.

1184
00:56:53,010 --> 00:56:55,680
And this is what the chemical
engineering department put

1185
00:56:55,680 --> 00:56:58,630
together for him when he retired
as a feitschrift,

1186
00:56:58,630 --> 00:57:01,960
because they felt the normal,
staid one was not appropriate

1187
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:02,760
for such a character.

1188
00:57:02,760 --> 00:57:06,450
PROFESSOR: What year
did he retire?

1189
00:57:06,450 --> 00:57:07,940
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Well, this
is the official retirement.

1190
00:57:07,940 --> 00:57:10,510
So this is like 1950 or so.

1191
00:57:10,510 --> 00:57:12,600
But as I say, he's like Leo.

1192
00:57:12,600 --> 00:57:14,200
He just kept teaching.

1193
00:57:14,200 --> 00:57:16,200
This is a CD.

1194
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:18,580
Just so you know, in the
archives they have-- this is

1195
00:57:18,580 --> 00:57:22,520
from tape, the original
tape, now on CD.

1196
00:57:22,520 --> 00:57:24,910
At the 50th anniversary of the
Department of Chemical

1197
00:57:24,910 --> 00:57:29,330
Engineering, so in 1970,
he gave a talk about

1198
00:57:29,330 --> 00:57:32,930
reminiscences and the
fascinating history of

1199
00:57:32,930 --> 00:57:35,280
chemical engineering in the 19th
century, where he has a

1200
00:57:35,280 --> 00:57:41,710
whole theory about the time
lag between discovery and

1201
00:57:41,710 --> 00:57:44,020
implementation, both in
electrical and chemical

1202
00:57:44,020 --> 00:57:45,800
engineering.

1203
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:48,570
For example, the role of
batteries in running the

1204
00:57:48,570 --> 00:57:52,720
telegraph system, which I had
never thought about it as an

1205
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:55,100
incentive to chemical
engineering.

1206
00:57:55,100 --> 00:57:57,550
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Oh,
very interesting.

1207
00:57:57,550 --> 00:58:00,980
AUDIENCE: You know the great
mentors of the chemical

1208
00:58:00,980 --> 00:58:03,920
industry that got [INAUDIBLE]?

1209
00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:04,410
PROFESSOR: No.

1210
00:58:04,410 --> 00:58:05,880
AUDIENCE: Paper making.

1211
00:58:05,880 --> 00:58:07,520
A lot of early involvement.

1212
00:58:07,520 --> 00:58:10,300
[INAUDIBLE]

1213
00:58:10,300 --> 00:58:13,468
to some degree, much less than
they were a national center of

1214
00:58:13,468 --> 00:58:14,620
paper making.

1215
00:58:14,620 --> 00:58:17,212
A lot of the early MIT chemical
engineers were with

1216
00:58:17,212 --> 00:58:18,940
the paper industry.

1217
00:58:18,940 --> 00:58:21,350
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: I
didn't know that.

1218
00:58:21,350 --> 00:58:23,030
And this last thing, and I
bring this along just in

1219
00:58:23,030 --> 00:58:24,060
serendipity.

1220
00:58:24,060 --> 00:58:27,436
This is an obituary in 1975.

1221
00:58:27,436 --> 00:58:29,730
He died on March 9.

1222
00:58:29,730 --> 00:58:31,495
This is the Tech Talk,
when we used to have

1223
00:58:31,495 --> 00:58:34,020
a printed MIT newspaper.

1224
00:58:34,020 --> 00:58:35,850
But what struck me
as I was picking

1225
00:58:35,850 --> 00:58:36,540
it up, OK, an obituary.

1226
00:58:36,540 --> 00:58:42,980
And then I look on the back of
the first page, "Response

1227
00:58:42,980 --> 00:58:48,060
Awaited on Proposal to Train
Iranian Nuclear Engineers."

1228
00:58:48,060 --> 00:58:53,660
And it just struck me, this
is why I love hard copy.

1229
00:58:53,660 --> 00:58:55,270
Because you' come across
things you don't

1230
00:58:55,270 --> 00:58:56,190
plan to come across.

1231
00:58:56,190 --> 00:59:00,540
And this is a reminder
of this is happening.

1232
00:59:00,540 --> 00:59:04,820
And of course this had my
attention, but on the back we

1233
00:59:04,820 --> 00:59:06,990
were being friendly with Iran.

1234
00:59:06,990 --> 00:59:09,110
The Shah was still around.

1235
00:59:09,110 --> 00:59:09,930
OK.

1236
00:59:09,930 --> 00:59:12,330
So that's my show and tell.

1237
00:59:12,330 --> 00:59:13,580
Do you have any questions?

1238
00:59:16,130 --> 00:59:18,080
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

1239
00:59:18,080 --> 00:59:20,250
Thank you for bringing
all this stuff.

1240
00:59:20,250 --> 00:59:22,550
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Well,
I just love stuff.

1241
00:59:22,550 --> 00:59:27,960
PROFESSOR: It reminds me that
I think historians have a

1242
00:59:27,960 --> 00:59:31,100
special feeling for
stuff like this.

1243
00:59:31,100 --> 00:59:33,780
But I remember when I was
working on my dissertation at

1244
00:59:33,780 --> 00:59:37,530
the National Archives, I was
writing about a topic that

1245
00:59:37,530 --> 00:59:40,060
dated back to the end
of the War of 1812.

1246
00:59:40,060 --> 00:59:42,360
So it was a long time ago.

1247
00:59:42,360 --> 00:59:47,610
And I was getting materials out
of the archives that were

1248
00:59:47,610 --> 00:59:50,420
still bound in the original
red tape.

1249
00:59:50,420 --> 00:59:52,120
And you'd pull those strings
apart and they would

1250
00:59:52,120 --> 00:59:53,370
disintegrate.

1251
00:59:55,350 --> 00:59:58,380
I don't know, it's a weird
feeling thinking that I'm the

1252
00:59:58,380 --> 01:00:03,800
first one to look at the stuff
in over 200 years.

1253
01:00:03,800 --> 01:00:07,310
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: It's kind
of creepy, but it's also

1254
01:00:07,310 --> 01:00:08,290
exhilarating.

1255
01:00:08,290 --> 01:00:09,490
PROFESSOR: Yeah, it is.

1256
01:00:09,490 --> 01:00:11,800
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Exploration,
right.

1257
01:00:11,800 --> 01:00:15,690
PROFESSOR: And then we had a
colleague that Ros and I knew,

1258
01:00:15,690 --> 01:00:17,750
and I think you may have
known him too, David.

1259
01:00:17,750 --> 01:00:18,910
His name was Brooke Hindle.

1260
01:00:18,910 --> 01:00:22,600
He was the former director of
the Museum of American History

1261
01:00:22,600 --> 01:00:23,690
at the Smithsonian.

1262
01:00:23,690 --> 01:00:28,120
But he wrote an article one time
called "What is a Piece

1263
01:00:28,120 --> 01:00:31,840
of the True Cross Worth." Do
you remember that article,

1264
01:00:31,840 --> 01:00:35,070
about the importance of
artifacts in the study of

1265
01:00:35,070 --> 01:00:37,830
technology particularly?

1266
01:00:37,830 --> 01:00:40,330
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: The story
is that they had four

1267
01:00:40,330 --> 01:00:42,570
children, two daughters,
two sons.

1268
01:00:42,570 --> 01:00:49,280
The other daughter, besides my
mother, Mary, married a guy

1269
01:00:49,280 --> 01:00:52,140
named Cherry Emerson, who
went into plastics

1270
01:00:52,140 --> 01:00:54,390
after World War II.

1271
01:00:54,390 --> 01:00:57,150
Plastics, and to quote Chambers,
made quite a bit of

1272
01:00:57,150 --> 01:01:00,220
money in chemical engineering.

1273
01:01:00,220 --> 01:01:02,630
And he studied with Doc
during the war.

1274
01:01:02,630 --> 01:01:07,940
So he gave the money to renovate
the library, naming

1275
01:01:07,940 --> 01:01:12,780
it in honor of my grandmother,
Warren K Lewis' wife.

1276
01:01:12,780 --> 01:01:15,780
And he always claimed
it was because she

1277
01:01:15,780 --> 01:01:17,180
loved music so much.

1278
01:01:17,180 --> 01:01:20,345
And I must say I never
heard her listen

1279
01:01:20,345 --> 01:01:22,320
or talk about music.

1280
01:01:22,320 --> 01:01:24,830
So I think it was more
Cherry's love

1281
01:01:24,830 --> 01:01:26,110
of music, than her's.

1282
01:01:26,110 --> 01:01:27,010
But that doesn't matter.

1283
01:01:27,010 --> 01:01:30,770
I think it's a great library.

1284
01:01:30,770 --> 01:01:35,610
And I think my grandmother would
particularly be happy

1285
01:01:35,610 --> 01:01:37,780
that students can sleep
on the couches there.

1286
01:01:37,780 --> 01:01:40,420
She's a very gentle soul.

1287
01:01:46,290 --> 01:01:50,031
AUDIENCE: Does anybody here have
parents who went to MIT

1288
01:01:50,031 --> 01:01:52,756
or other relatives?

1289
01:01:52,756 --> 01:01:57,272
So one think you do see is,
any institution that lasts

1290
01:01:57,272 --> 01:02:00,180
this long has this kind
of family connection.

1291
01:02:00,180 --> 01:02:03,429
Universities are sort of famous
for keeping track of

1292
01:02:03,429 --> 01:02:04,679
that sort of thig.

1293
01:02:10,180 --> 01:02:12,170
And that's true among
faculty, as well.

1294
01:02:12,170 --> 01:02:17,560
And there's the genealogies
of our blood families.

1295
01:02:17,560 --> 01:02:20,110
And then we'll talk a bit about
this, but not to much

1296
01:02:20,110 --> 01:02:20,950
explicitly yet.

1297
01:02:20,950 --> 01:02:23,795
We'll talk about it in the
second half, the academic

1298
01:02:23,795 --> 01:02:27,420
genealogies of so and so's
teacher was so and so's

1299
01:02:27,420 --> 01:02:28,534
student, was so and
so's student,

1300
01:02:28,534 --> 01:02:29,564
was so and so's student.

1301
01:02:29,564 --> 01:02:34,530
And then our colleague, Leo
Marx, who was my teacher, Who

1302
01:02:34,530 --> 01:02:36,910
said that, how does it go?

1303
01:02:36,910 --> 01:02:39,801
His adviser from Harvard in the
'40s-- it's only two steps

1304
01:02:39,801 --> 01:02:42,687
back to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

1305
01:02:42,687 --> 01:02:45,332
You can trace four academic
generations today from Leo

1306
01:02:45,332 --> 01:02:47,016
Marx to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

1307
01:02:51,950 --> 01:02:55,060
I'm sure there are people
here, some of the senior

1308
01:02:55,060 --> 01:02:57,960
faculty who were students
of your grandfather's.

1309
01:02:57,960 --> 01:02:59,320
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: If
I go to Chemical

1310
01:02:59,320 --> 01:03:00,810
Engineering, they just--

1311
01:03:00,810 --> 01:03:02,060
oh, Warren K--

1312
01:03:05,210 --> 01:03:07,910
AUDIENCE: And that's a person
who started here in 1896.

1313
01:03:07,910 --> 01:03:11,347
And more than 100 years later,
there are still that person's

1314
01:03:11,347 --> 01:03:12,820
students around.

1315
01:03:12,820 --> 01:03:14,680
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: That's been
a great been pleasure of

1316
01:03:14,680 --> 01:03:15,410
university life.

1317
01:03:15,410 --> 01:03:16,245
It's a sense of continuity.

1318
01:03:16,245 --> 01:03:17,950
I mean it would drive
me crazy too.

1319
01:03:22,710 --> 01:03:27,870
PROFESSOR: Ros, your grandfather
was born in

1320
01:03:27,870 --> 01:03:31,920
Delaware and pretty
much raised there.

1321
01:03:31,920 --> 01:03:35,500
He obviously was a
religious person.

1322
01:03:35,500 --> 01:03:36,750
What persuasion?

1323
01:03:39,230 --> 01:03:41,750
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: I think in
Delaware, he was Methodist.

1324
01:03:41,750 --> 01:03:42,080
PROFESSOR: Methodist.

1325
01:03:42,080 --> 01:03:42,910
Yeah, that makes sense.

1326
01:03:42,910 --> 01:03:45,560
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: And one of
the most fascinating books I

1327
01:03:45,560 --> 01:03:49,130
have is of an uncle of his who
was a Methodist circuit rider

1328
01:03:49,130 --> 01:03:54,800
in Delaware, in the 1850s,
setting up black churches.

1329
01:03:54,800 --> 01:03:55,490
They were separate,--

1330
01:03:55,490 --> 01:03:55,690
PROFESSOR: Really.

1331
01:03:55,690 --> 01:03:56,400
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: --but
setting them up.

1332
01:03:56,400 --> 01:03:58,670
Oh, it's fascinating.

1333
01:03:58,670 --> 01:04:02,810
And my grandfather then joined
the Congregational church up

1334
01:04:02,810 --> 01:04:07,620
here, Elliott church
in Newton.

1335
01:04:07,620 --> 01:04:10,650
Because Methodism up here is a
little different from what it

1336
01:04:10,650 --> 01:04:12,100
was in the South.

1337
01:04:12,100 --> 01:04:13,820
But you get the point.

1338
01:04:13,820 --> 01:04:14,650
It's a low church.

1339
01:04:14,650 --> 01:04:15,900
It's not Episcopalian.

1340
01:04:18,181 --> 01:04:22,560
And he taught Sunday school
every Sunday,

1341
01:04:22,560 --> 01:04:24,380
as long as he could.

1342
01:04:24,380 --> 01:04:28,910
And his religious faith
meant a lot to him.

1343
01:04:28,910 --> 01:04:31,820
He was not a fundamentalist,
at all.

1344
01:04:31,820 --> 01:04:36,910
He said, I take the Bible
seriously, but not literally.

1345
01:04:36,910 --> 01:04:41,450
But I mean he knew his
Bible up one side

1346
01:04:41,450 --> 01:04:43,270
and down the other.

1347
01:04:43,270 --> 01:04:45,890
And it was really fundamental
to him.

1348
01:04:45,890 --> 01:04:52,075
In his old age, he became good
friends with John Crocker, who

1349
01:04:52,075 --> 01:04:57,080
was the Episcopal chaplain
here at MIT.

1350
01:04:57,080 --> 01:04:58,410
And they had a lot of talks.

1351
01:04:58,410 --> 01:05:00,780
And I mean again, I think maybe
whether it was guilt

1352
01:05:00,780 --> 01:05:08,640
about the Manhattan Project or
just trying to kind of talk

1353
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:11,280
about matters of faith and
other matters too.

1354
01:05:11,280 --> 01:05:18,490
So Crocker led his funeral
service, which I was glad that

1355
01:05:18,490 --> 01:05:19,330
he was able to do.

1356
01:05:19,330 --> 01:05:22,110
So I think religion is one of
the great untapped kind of

1357
01:05:22,110 --> 01:05:27,750
untapped, unappreciated sources
of motivation at MIT.

1358
01:05:27,750 --> 01:05:30,470
And I don't think my
grandfather's unusual.

1359
01:05:30,470 --> 01:05:33,480
And it's not necessarily any
particular religion.

1360
01:05:33,480 --> 01:05:37,950
But people from outside MIT are
always amazed to find how

1361
01:05:37,950 --> 01:05:42,150
strong the religious groups are
here and how many there

1362
01:05:42,150 --> 01:05:44,250
are and how active they are.

1363
01:05:44,250 --> 01:05:48,410
It's not their vision of MIT,
but it's very true.

1364
01:05:53,450 --> 01:05:53,820
OK.

1365
01:05:53,820 --> 01:05:55,410
ROSALIND WILLIAMS: Well,
thank you very much.

1366
01:05:55,410 --> 01:05:57,630
PROFESSOR: Thank
you very much.

1367
01:05:57,630 --> 01:06:03,060
PROFESSOR: OK, I want to just
talk today a little bit more

1368
01:06:03,060 --> 01:06:06,520
about the '30s, the
'20s and the '30s.

1369
01:06:06,520 --> 01:06:12,830
And again, kind of like Ros's
talk, use a specific case of a

1370
01:06:12,830 --> 01:06:16,190
particular faculty member and
a particular machine to

1371
01:06:16,190 --> 01:06:20,890
illustrate some of the general
ideas about where MIT moved

1372
01:06:20,890 --> 01:06:26,790
between about 1925 and 1935 and
why that's interesting.

1373
01:06:26,790 --> 01:06:31,850
And you of course know from the
readings, and the more you

1374
01:06:31,850 --> 01:06:34,340
look at this, everybody says it
and the more I read about

1375
01:06:34,340 --> 01:06:37,460
it, the more you really feel
like Karl Compton coming here

1376
01:06:37,460 --> 01:06:40,420
in 1930 was a major
turning point.

1377
01:06:40,420 --> 01:06:44,310
There was this kind of
internal warfare.

1378
01:06:44,310 --> 01:06:49,140
What was the word that Lewis
used, hot fights about the

1379
01:06:49,140 --> 01:06:51,120
relation of science
and engineering.

1380
01:06:51,120 --> 01:06:54,930
And the Corporation definitely
has an opinion about it.

1381
01:06:54,930 --> 01:06:56,290
And one thing they do--

1382
01:06:56,290 --> 01:06:58,150
they don't have a lot of control
over the faculty, but

1383
01:06:58,150 --> 01:07:00,130
they do decide who
the president is.

1384
01:07:00,130 --> 01:07:02,510
And so they bring
in Karl Compton.

1385
01:07:02,510 --> 01:07:04,110
He's 42 years old--

1386
01:07:04,110 --> 01:07:07,100
and it probably sounds
old to you.

1387
01:07:07,100 --> 01:07:10,030
It sounds young to me--

1388
01:07:10,030 --> 01:07:11,230
in 1930.

1389
01:07:11,230 --> 01:07:15,530
And one of the young people who
was already here was this

1390
01:07:15,530 --> 01:07:17,420
guy then Vannevar Bush, who
we've also heard about, and

1391
01:07:17,420 --> 01:07:20,110
we'll hear about a bunch more,
who was a young electrical

1392
01:07:20,110 --> 01:07:22,740
engineering professor.

1393
01:07:22,740 --> 01:07:25,370
And he was building this
device called a

1394
01:07:25,370 --> 01:07:26,920
differential analyzer.

1395
01:07:26,920 --> 01:07:32,080
And what I want to do today--
this is again, a sort of

1396
01:07:32,080 --> 01:07:35,150
prototype for what a paper topic
might be, is to look at

1397
01:07:35,150 --> 01:07:39,160
this instrument and how this
instrument was handled and how

1398
01:07:39,160 --> 01:07:42,230
the instrument itself changed
as the goals of the

1399
01:07:42,230 --> 01:07:45,870
Institution changed, from the
'20s through the '30s.

1400
01:07:45,870 --> 01:07:48,690
So here's Bush and there's
the analyzer.

1401
01:07:48,690 --> 01:07:54,960
And when we go to the MIT
Museum, one of the 150 objects

1402
01:07:54,960 --> 01:07:56,960
is that part of the
analyzer that's in

1403
01:07:56,960 --> 01:07:57,800
the wooden box there.

1404
01:07:57,800 --> 01:07:59,180
I'll tell you more about
what that is.

1405
01:07:59,180 --> 01:08:01,405
But it's sitting right there
on the front of the floor.

1406
01:08:01,405 --> 01:08:05,380
And when I was first doing this
research, I asked them if

1407
01:08:05,380 --> 01:08:07,260
they had a piece of it and
they didn't really know.

1408
01:08:07,260 --> 01:08:09,620
And Debbie Douglas and I went
back in the storerooms and we

1409
01:08:09,620 --> 01:08:12,535
found that the original
integrator was there.

1410
01:08:15,490 --> 01:08:19,050
So if you go into the
1920s, Bush is here.

1411
01:08:19,050 --> 01:08:20,300
He's a young professor.

1412
01:08:20,300 --> 01:08:22,670
He had gotten his Ph.D. here.

1413
01:08:22,670 --> 01:08:24,569
And he was a student of
Kennelly, who I mentioned

1414
01:08:24,569 --> 01:08:26,990
before, who was Edison's
assistant.

1415
01:08:26,990 --> 01:08:31,720
And they were very much in the
kind of technology plan world

1416
01:08:31,720 --> 01:08:36,210
of MIT, solving problems for
big industrial partners.

1417
01:08:36,210 --> 01:08:39,100
And what is the problem that
the big industrial partners

1418
01:08:39,100 --> 01:08:39,670
are having?

1419
01:08:39,670 --> 01:08:43,040
Well, in the electrical world,
and you've got to remember

1420
01:08:43,040 --> 01:08:45,060
electrical engineering for a--

1421
01:08:45,060 --> 01:08:48,500
how people here are Core 6,
in one way or another?

1422
01:08:48,500 --> 01:08:49,859
OK, so about a third.

1423
01:08:49,859 --> 01:08:52,590
Electrical engineering, for its
first 100 years, really

1424
01:08:52,590 --> 01:08:56,250
was electrical, without a lot of
electronics or any of that

1425
01:08:56,250 --> 01:08:57,899
solid state physics
or certainly no

1426
01:08:57,899 --> 01:08:58,779
computers and stuff.

1427
01:08:58,779 --> 01:09:05,410
It was building big machines
to make big generators, and

1428
01:09:05,410 --> 01:09:13,399
big generators, transmission
lines, large electric motors,

1429
01:09:13,399 --> 01:09:15,520
to drive factories and other
kinds of things.

1430
01:09:15,520 --> 01:09:21,450
And anybody ever hear of the
IEEE, Institute of Electrical

1431
01:09:21,450 --> 01:09:25,090
and Electronic Engineers?

1432
01:09:25,090 --> 01:09:26,600
This is a little
bit of trivia.

1433
01:09:26,600 --> 01:09:29,359
But there was the AIEE,
American Institute of

1434
01:09:29,359 --> 01:09:30,240
Electrical Engineers.

1435
01:09:30,240 --> 01:09:32,470
Those are the big electric
power people.

1436
01:09:32,470 --> 01:09:35,790
In fact, in German universities
they still divide

1437
01:09:35,790 --> 01:09:38,779
the curriculum into big signals
and a little signals.

1438
01:09:38,779 --> 01:09:41,819
And so big signals
was the AIEE.

1439
01:09:41,819 --> 01:09:44,479
Little signals was the IRE,
Institute of Radio

1440
01:09:44,479 --> 01:09:47,710
Engineering, lots of little
tiny, little small signals.

1441
01:09:47,710 --> 01:09:50,330
And in 1964, they merged
in the IEEE.

1442
01:09:50,330 --> 01:09:52,470
It's to electrical and
electronic engineers.

1443
01:09:52,470 --> 01:09:55,520
Even though it's probably one of
the two major professional

1444
01:09:55,520 --> 01:09:58,240
societies for computation, but
the word "computer" doesn't

1445
01:09:58,240 --> 01:10:01,110
appear in the title at all.

1446
01:10:01,110 --> 01:10:03,970
And so, this is back in the
days of electric power.

1447
01:10:03,970 --> 01:10:09,710
And the problem with the
electric power industry is the

1448
01:10:09,710 --> 01:10:15,030
electric generators start out as
basically local phenomena.

1449
01:10:15,030 --> 01:10:17,840
A local entrepreneur will build
a generator, either a

1450
01:10:17,840 --> 01:10:20,000
hydro plant or steam powered,
in one way or

1451
01:10:20,000 --> 01:10:22,040
another, in a town.

1452
01:10:22,040 --> 01:10:26,940
And they'll create lighting in
the town and maybe run some

1453
01:10:26,940 --> 01:10:28,650
motors in factories.

1454
01:10:28,650 --> 01:10:31,990
And it's all centralized and
it was all nonuniform.

1455
01:10:31,990 --> 01:10:34,080
Every town had a different

1456
01:10:34,080 --> 01:10:36,010
voltage, a different frequency.

1457
01:10:36,010 --> 01:10:38,510
Some of them were running
on direct current versus

1458
01:10:38,510 --> 01:10:39,390
alternating current.

1459
01:10:39,390 --> 01:10:43,520
These are all big battles they
were having at the time.

1460
01:10:43,520 --> 01:10:47,070
But over the course of the
teens and the '20s, those

1461
01:10:47,070 --> 01:10:48,750
systems are becoming
standardized and they're

1462
01:10:48,750 --> 01:10:51,420
becoming connected into what
today we would call grids.

1463
01:10:51,420 --> 01:10:53,590
So they have a big electric
power grid.

1464
01:10:53,590 --> 01:10:57,410
And they're not quite
national yet, but

1465
01:10:57,410 --> 01:10:59,020
they're very much regional.

1466
01:10:59,020 --> 01:11:03,040
And so in the '20s, General
Electric starts to build a big

1467
01:11:03,040 --> 01:11:10,170
grid that brings hydroelectric
power from in Canada and also

1468
01:11:10,170 --> 01:11:13,330
from Niagara Falls, through
very, very long transmission

1469
01:11:13,330 --> 01:11:16,130
lines, hundreds and hundreds
of miles, down into the New

1470
01:11:16,130 --> 01:11:19,250
York City area, which is where
most of the population and

1471
01:11:19,250 --> 01:11:21,780
most of the energy
usage is from.

1472
01:11:21,780 --> 01:11:24,660
And those lines begin
to have problems.

1473
01:11:24,660 --> 01:11:28,420
And the problems are, if you've
got either a lightning

1474
01:11:28,420 --> 01:11:31,740
strike at one part of the line,
you had a bad electrical

1475
01:11:31,740 --> 01:11:36,090
storm, or even if you had a
short circuit and part of the

1476
01:11:36,090 --> 01:11:41,180
grid tripped off and had just to
sort of save itself, you'd

1477
01:11:41,180 --> 01:11:43,300
get these transients
on the line.

1478
01:11:43,300 --> 01:11:45,530
And the transients would
travel great distances.

1479
01:11:45,530 --> 01:11:49,570
They were just like big wave
power spikes on the line and

1480
01:11:49,570 --> 01:11:51,250
create blackouts all
over the place.

1481
01:11:51,250 --> 01:11:53,790
And there a couple of famous
blackouts that happened in the

1482
01:11:53,790 --> 01:11:55,850
early '20s that really
caused a big problem.

1483
01:11:55,850 --> 01:12:02,040
So this was like a critical
issue about how do you figure

1484
01:12:02,040 --> 01:12:05,410
out, how do you model the
performance of these systems

1485
01:12:05,410 --> 01:12:06,990
under this kind of stress?

1486
01:12:06,990 --> 01:12:10,170
And General Electric, and this
has come up in the readings in

1487
01:12:10,170 --> 01:12:12,820
places, had a very close
relationship with MIT.

1488
01:12:12,820 --> 01:12:15,840
There were a lot of young
engineers who would go there,

1489
01:12:15,840 --> 01:12:17,985
what they called on-test,
to Schenectady.

1490
01:12:17,985 --> 01:12:20,960
In fact, that's where
Ros's father worked.

1491
01:12:20,960 --> 01:12:24,930
I don't if she mention that,
Doc Lewis's son went to

1492
01:12:24,930 --> 01:12:27,750
Schenectady and worked
for General Electric.

1493
01:12:27,750 --> 01:12:30,660
And then they would come back
to MIT sometimes, to get a

1494
01:12:30,660 --> 01:12:32,010
master's degree.

1495
01:12:32,010 --> 01:12:34,920
And they began looking at this
problem of how do you

1496
01:12:34,920 --> 01:12:36,420
understand these systems.

1497
01:12:36,420 --> 01:12:40,120
Now, Bush had done earlier work
in his career, which was

1498
01:12:40,120 --> 01:12:42,010
also based on this whole
idea of modeling.

1499
01:12:42,010 --> 01:12:44,260
I may have mentioned
this before where--

1500
01:12:44,260 --> 01:12:47,010
how many of you have taken an
engineering class where you

1501
01:12:47,010 --> 01:12:53,200
use a spring mass damper
system and model a RLC

1502
01:12:53,200 --> 01:12:55,200
circuit with it?

1503
01:12:55,200 --> 01:12:56,790
Ring a bell for anybody?

1504
01:12:56,790 --> 01:12:59,660
OK, maybe a few too
many times.

1505
01:12:59,660 --> 01:13:01,530
Or, there are other analogies,
different kinds

1506
01:13:01,530 --> 01:13:03,510
of hydraulic analogies.

1507
01:13:03,510 --> 01:13:06,170
Well, that whole idea basically
comes from the first

1508
01:13:06,170 --> 01:13:08,470
book that Vannevar Bush wrote,
which is called Operational

1509
01:13:08,470 --> 01:13:14,680
Circuit Analysis, where first
of all he applies a thing

1510
01:13:14,680 --> 01:13:18,860
called Oliver Heaviside's
operational calculus.

1511
01:13:18,860 --> 01:13:21,170
Anybody ever heard of the
Heaviside step function?

1512
01:13:24,438 --> 01:13:29,360
And Heaviside was a sort of
somewhat outlandish English

1513
01:13:29,360 --> 01:13:31,580
engineer around the turn of the
century, who came up with

1514
01:13:31,580 --> 01:13:32,710
these ideas.

1515
01:13:32,710 --> 01:13:34,890
Mathematicians didn't like them
because they couldn't

1516
01:13:34,890 --> 01:13:36,510
prove they were valid.

1517
01:13:36,510 --> 01:13:38,685
Heaviside just didn't care about
it at all because he

1518
01:13:38,685 --> 01:13:40,390
could show that they
were useful.

1519
01:13:40,390 --> 01:13:43,760
And they told you a lot about
how transients go down lines.

1520
01:13:43,760 --> 01:13:46,390
And Bush really took the
Heaviside work and he put it

1521
01:13:46,390 --> 01:13:48,740
on a rigorous mathematical
foundation.

1522
01:13:48,740 --> 01:13:51,840
And said among other things,
you can use these analogies

1523
01:13:51,840 --> 01:13:57,570
and you can model a second order
system in any of these

1524
01:13:57,570 --> 01:14:00,120
different fields with
a set of equations.

1525
01:14:00,120 --> 01:14:03,460
And that can be either RLC
circuit or a spring mass

1526
01:14:03,460 --> 01:14:07,080
damper or there are also
hydraulic versions of it, I'm

1527
01:14:07,080 --> 01:14:09,320
sure any number of other ones.

1528
01:14:09,320 --> 01:14:13,300
And what that basic idea allows
you to do is to make

1529
01:14:13,300 --> 01:14:15,270
models of different
kinds of circuits.

1530
01:14:15,270 --> 01:14:17,990
And so what they said
is here's this

1531
01:14:17,990 --> 01:14:19,060
electric power problem.

1532
01:14:19,060 --> 01:14:23,120
Let's look at this problem and
let's build a model of it.

1533
01:14:23,120 --> 01:14:27,300
And what this thing is, is
called a network analyzer.

1534
01:14:27,300 --> 01:14:30,630
And this picture is probably
about 1927.

1535
01:14:30,630 --> 01:14:34,240
And all it is, is-- well, first
thing they make a model

1536
01:14:34,240 --> 01:14:38,630
of just the electric
power line between

1537
01:14:38,630 --> 01:14:41,100
Niagara Falls and Boston.

1538
01:14:41,100 --> 01:14:47,770
So there might be a couple of
generators on the line in

1539
01:14:47,770 --> 01:14:50,670
Niagara Falls, then there's a
long transmission line, then

1540
01:14:50,670 --> 01:14:57,080
there's a whole bunch of
different users, and maybe you

1541
01:14:57,080 --> 01:15:00,280
make one circuit that's
50,000 times

1542
01:15:00,280 --> 01:15:02,780
smaller than the original.

1543
01:15:02,780 --> 01:15:06,500
And you use that as a model.

1544
01:15:06,500 --> 01:15:08,250
And anybody know what
the big problem

1545
01:15:08,250 --> 01:15:09,500
with that was actually?

1546
01:15:12,850 --> 01:15:16,720
The hardest thing about making
these small models was

1547
01:15:16,720 --> 01:15:19,880
measuring the output.

1548
01:15:19,880 --> 01:15:23,250
If you go to the actual electric
power system and you

1549
01:15:23,250 --> 01:15:26,240
put a voltmeter on the line,
that voltmeter is going to

1550
01:15:26,240 --> 01:15:27,300
load the line by some amount.

1551
01:15:27,300 --> 01:15:29,690
But it's negligible, it
really has no impact.

1552
01:15:29,690 --> 01:15:32,130
If you make it 50,000 times
smaller, you've still got the

1553
01:15:32,130 --> 01:15:33,280
same voltmeter.

1554
01:15:33,280 --> 01:15:35,380
And you put it on the line and
it's the equivalent of like

1555
01:15:35,380 --> 01:15:36,900
putting a whole factory
on the line.

1556
01:15:36,900 --> 01:15:39,060
And it affects the performance
of it in ways

1557
01:15:39,060 --> 01:15:42,210
that it wouldn't otherwise.

1558
01:15:42,210 --> 01:15:44,750
So it's one thing to
make this model.

1559
01:15:44,750 --> 01:15:46,940
And they did that rather
successfully and it helped

1560
01:15:46,940 --> 01:15:47,690
them describe.

1561
01:15:47,690 --> 01:15:50,460
And they then reported the
results to GE, this is how the

1562
01:15:50,460 --> 01:15:52,420
thing would behave under
a lightning strike.

1563
01:15:52,420 --> 01:15:55,080
And these are some strategies
you can take to make it a

1564
01:15:55,080 --> 01:15:56,630
little more robust.

1565
01:15:56,630 --> 01:15:58,980
Well, once the word out about
that, all these different

1566
01:15:58,980 --> 01:16:00,760
power companies came and
said, we would like you

1567
01:16:00,760 --> 01:16:02,340
to model our system.

1568
01:16:02,340 --> 01:16:03,780
And so what did they do?

1569
01:16:03,780 --> 01:16:05,500
Did they constantly build
a new one for

1570
01:16:05,500 --> 01:16:06,670
everybody's power system?

1571
01:16:06,670 --> 01:16:07,380
No.

1572
01:16:07,380 --> 01:16:08,690
They built a little set up.

1573
01:16:08,690 --> 01:16:10,680
Actually, I don't even have to
draw it, because it's here.

1574
01:16:10,680 --> 01:16:12,610
Where they said OK, we're going
to put a bunch of models

1575
01:16:12,610 --> 01:16:15,580
of transmission lines and a
bunch of models of generators

1576
01:16:15,580 --> 01:16:17,190
and a bunch of models
of other things.

1577
01:16:17,190 --> 01:16:18,930
And they're actually connected
together by

1578
01:16:18,930 --> 01:16:20,770
telephone plug boards.

1579
01:16:20,770 --> 01:16:25,130
And you bring your system here
and we'll plug it together in

1580
01:16:25,130 --> 01:16:27,710
a certain way, much
like a telephone

1581
01:16:27,710 --> 01:16:29,100
operator connects circuits.

1582
01:16:29,100 --> 01:16:30,790
At that time, it was
done manually.

1583
01:16:30,790 --> 01:16:32,870
And we'll create this thing.

1584
01:16:32,870 --> 01:16:37,130
And this thing, they actually
called it a network computer,

1585
01:16:37,130 --> 01:16:40,400
which is a nice word for it,
that comes up later in MIT

1586
01:16:40,400 --> 01:16:42,080
culture, about 50 years later.

1587
01:16:42,080 --> 01:16:44,420
And electric power companies
would come here.

1588
01:16:44,420 --> 01:16:48,270
And students would write their
theses by designing this

1589
01:16:48,270 --> 01:16:53,560
system and describing it for
a particular power company.

1590
01:16:53,560 --> 01:16:55,140
And saying here, I modeled
your circuit.

1591
01:16:55,140 --> 01:16:57,520
And this thing actually
was around until the

1592
01:16:57,520 --> 01:16:59,490
'50s, it turns out.

1593
01:16:59,490 --> 01:17:02,000
We'll talk about it getting shut
down when Gordon Brown

1594
01:17:02,000 --> 01:17:03,120
shut it down.

1595
01:17:03,120 --> 01:17:07,640
But it was again this kind of
classic MIT in the 1920s,

1596
01:17:07,640 --> 01:17:12,020
early '30s, model of close
relationships with industry,

1597
01:17:12,020 --> 01:17:15,490
solving very particular
problems, almost in a literal

1598
01:17:15,490 --> 01:17:16,750
consulting role.

1599
01:17:16,750 --> 01:17:17,910
Tell us what your issue is?

1600
01:17:17,910 --> 01:17:20,560
We'll model it and we'll help
you solve the problem.

1601
01:17:20,560 --> 01:17:23,110
So we read a lot about that.

1602
01:17:27,210 --> 01:17:29,750
Then there was another approach,
which was to

1603
01:17:29,750 --> 01:17:35,290
calculate the progress of these
transients directly.

1604
01:17:35,290 --> 01:17:37,250
And how did they do that?

1605
01:17:37,250 --> 01:17:43,240
Well, they could do it
analytically with algebra.

1606
01:17:43,240 --> 01:17:45,430
It was extremely difficult
because it was not easy to

1607
01:17:45,430 --> 01:17:46,250
write the equations.

1608
01:17:46,250 --> 01:17:48,430
But it was much easier
to build an analog

1609
01:17:48,430 --> 01:17:50,000
computer to model it.

1610
01:17:50,000 --> 01:17:58,580
And it turned out, and you
probably recognize this, that

1611
01:17:58,580 --> 01:18:03,960
the integral of the product
of two functions

1612
01:18:03,960 --> 01:18:05,380
is a critical piece.

1613
01:18:05,380 --> 01:18:07,850
Today, you find it in all kinds
of signals processing

1614
01:18:07,850 --> 01:18:10,500
and convolution algorithms.

1615
01:18:10,500 --> 01:18:14,830
And they said we'll build
basically these machines that

1616
01:18:14,830 --> 01:18:17,330
will model the key
function of it.

1617
01:18:17,330 --> 01:18:19,930
And this is an early version
of it, which is also a

1618
01:18:19,930 --> 01:18:22,590
specific machine modeled
to evaluate

1619
01:18:22,590 --> 01:18:23,660
the specific integral.

1620
01:18:23,660 --> 01:18:25,970
They called it a product
intergraph.

1621
01:18:25,970 --> 01:18:27,530
And it didn't use equations
at all.

1622
01:18:27,530 --> 01:18:30,030
It just took curves in
and drew curves out.

1623
01:18:30,030 --> 01:18:32,980
There you can see Bush.

1624
01:18:32,980 --> 01:18:35,560
This is actually the output
device, which

1625
01:18:35,560 --> 01:18:37,250
is a watt/hour meter.

1626
01:18:37,250 --> 01:18:38,760
Why would they use
a watt/hour meter

1627
01:18:38,760 --> 01:18:40,170
from an electric utility?

1628
01:18:45,290 --> 01:18:47,380
Because a watt/hour meter does
the same thing, right.

1629
01:18:47,380 --> 01:18:50,150
It evaluates the integral of
the product of the current.

1630
01:18:50,150 --> 01:18:51,910
And the voltage is the
amount of power that

1631
01:18:51,910 --> 01:18:53,890
you get billed for.

1632
01:18:53,890 --> 01:18:57,930
So they take this thing and
they just stick there.

1633
01:18:57,930 --> 01:19:00,400
And then there's these kind of
funky mechanical linkages.

1634
01:19:00,400 --> 01:19:02,210
And there's all these
people involved.

1635
01:19:02,210 --> 01:19:03,980
And actually they have
big high-power

1636
01:19:03,980 --> 01:19:06,110
resistors, so they use a--

1637
01:19:06,110 --> 01:19:07,520
anybody want to guess what
that thing hanging

1638
01:19:07,520 --> 01:19:10,450
up on the top is?

1639
01:19:10,450 --> 01:19:11,620
AUDIENCE: Radiator.

1640
01:19:11,620 --> 01:19:13,020
PROFESSOR: Close.

1641
01:19:13,020 --> 01:19:13,460
AUDIENCE: Radiator.

1642
01:19:13,460 --> 01:19:16,120
PROFESSOR: It's a
radiator, from?

1643
01:19:16,120 --> 01:19:17,020
AUDIENCE: Model T.

1644
01:19:17,020 --> 01:19:19,840
PROFESSOR: It's a radiator
from a Model T Ford, that

1645
01:19:19,840 --> 01:19:23,130
they're using to provide cooling
water to this machine,

1646
01:19:23,130 --> 01:19:25,540
which evaluates this particular
integral for this

1647
01:19:25,540 --> 01:19:27,510
particular electric
power problem.

1648
01:19:27,510 --> 01:19:30,930
In fact, some of these
are Bush's students.

1649
01:19:30,930 --> 01:19:33,310
This one particularly is a guy
named Harold Hazen, who we

1650
01:19:33,310 --> 01:19:34,900
will talk about later.

1651
01:19:34,900 --> 01:19:39,380
In fact, he's also the guy
sitting in the middle there,

1652
01:19:39,380 --> 01:19:40,630
in that picture.

1653
01:19:43,670 --> 01:19:44,620
Here's another picture of it.

1654
01:19:44,620 --> 01:19:48,320
You can see the watt/hour meter,
just taken right out of

1655
01:19:48,320 --> 01:19:53,080
an electric power measurement
facility.

1656
01:19:53,080 --> 01:19:54,700
Again, you sort of work
with what you have.

1657
01:19:54,700 --> 01:19:56,140
They were working with
electric companies.

1658
01:19:56,140 --> 01:19:58,180
They had these electrical
things, a whole bunch of

1659
01:19:58,180 --> 01:20:00,110
different motor and gears
and interconnections.

1660
01:20:00,110 --> 01:20:03,770
And this was probably
in Building--

1661
01:20:03,770 --> 01:20:05,050
somewhere in the main group.

1662
01:20:05,050 --> 01:20:06,010
I'm forgetting exactly.

1663
01:20:06,010 --> 01:20:10,210
Building 10, I believe
was this lab.

1664
01:20:10,210 --> 01:20:12,460
I liked, you still have the
pencil sharpener there.

1665
01:20:12,460 --> 01:20:14,585
This is probably the one part
of what was in the lab that

1666
01:20:14,585 --> 01:20:16,590
you might still find in
a laboratory today.

1667
01:20:21,030 --> 01:20:22,360
There's a picture
of Bush with it.

1668
01:20:22,360 --> 01:20:23,670
You can see he looks
pretty young.

1669
01:20:26,780 --> 01:20:31,710
And so there's the
first product

1670
01:20:31,710 --> 01:20:33,490
intergraph, is this device.

1671
01:20:33,490 --> 01:20:37,530
And what it does is all those
little graph chart holders

1672
01:20:37,530 --> 01:20:41,170
basically, move under these
three independent needles.

1673
01:20:41,170 --> 01:20:47,680
And the operators just follow
the first two curves and then

1674
01:20:47,680 --> 01:20:51,410
the output plots the integral
of those two curves.

1675
01:20:51,410 --> 01:20:53,700
So it's literally a graphical
user interface

1676
01:20:53,700 --> 01:20:56,320
for an analog computer.

1677
01:20:56,320 --> 01:20:59,940
And then, they actually bring
it up to one more level of

1678
01:20:59,940 --> 01:21:00,690
complication.

1679
01:21:00,690 --> 01:21:03,560
And there's a way that you can
make it solve a differential

1680
01:21:03,560 --> 01:21:06,320
equation, as well as just
evaluating an integral.

1681
01:21:06,320 --> 01:21:09,070
And so this thing is called the
second product intergraph,

1682
01:21:09,070 --> 01:21:10,060
where it's the same
kind of thing.

1683
01:21:10,060 --> 01:21:14,340
There's two different pieces and
then you can sort of tie

1684
01:21:14,340 --> 01:21:16,420
the output back to the input.

1685
01:21:16,420 --> 01:21:20,510
And this is about where things
stood when Karl Compton

1686
01:21:20,510 --> 01:21:22,395
becomes president of MIT.

1687
01:21:22,395 --> 01:21:25,390
And Compton basically says,
we're not going to do that

1688
01:21:25,390 --> 01:21:26,380
kind of stuff anymore.

1689
01:21:26,380 --> 01:21:28,410
It's too focused on
just one problem.

1690
01:21:28,410 --> 01:21:30,060
It's too simple.

1691
01:21:30,060 --> 01:21:36,760
And Bush responds in a
very energetic way.

1692
01:21:36,760 --> 01:21:39,840
And he builds this machine
about 1931.

1693
01:21:39,840 --> 01:21:41,530
And this is called the
differential analyzer.

1694
01:21:41,530 --> 01:21:45,380
Anybody ever heard of
that term before?

1695
01:21:45,380 --> 01:21:51,280
And really it's kind of nothing
more than this, but

1696
01:21:51,280 --> 01:21:53,640
made in a fully general
purpose way.

1697
01:21:53,640 --> 01:21:57,250
Or like I mentioned before, they
did with the simulator,

1698
01:21:57,250 --> 01:22:00,630
they first started building a
custom one and then they built

1699
01:22:00,630 --> 01:22:01,790
a general one.

1700
01:22:01,790 --> 01:22:06,430
And what you see here is, these
guys here are called

1701
01:22:06,430 --> 01:22:07,140
integrators.

1702
01:22:07,140 --> 01:22:10,540
That's the core of
the problem.

1703
01:22:10,540 --> 01:22:12,520
Again, it's primarily an
integral thing you're trying

1704
01:22:12,520 --> 01:22:13,900
to evaluate.

1705
01:22:13,900 --> 01:22:16,450
An integrator is nothing more
than, they call it a wheel and

1706
01:22:16,450 --> 01:22:18,030
disk integrator.

1707
01:22:18,030 --> 01:22:19,590
There's a disk that
spins around.

1708
01:22:19,590 --> 01:22:22,530
In a mechanical sense, that's
just a transmission, but a

1709
01:22:22,530 --> 01:22:24,200
continuously variable one.

1710
01:22:24,200 --> 01:22:26,520
Then there's a wheel that sits
on the transmission.

1711
01:22:26,520 --> 01:22:32,830
And if the disk is spinning at
a fixed rate and the wheel

1712
01:22:32,830 --> 01:22:35,210
goes in and out, the number of
turns on the upper end of

1713
01:22:35,210 --> 01:22:39,680
wheel is the integral of the
curve of the position of the

1714
01:22:39,680 --> 01:22:40,890
wheel that pulls it off.

1715
01:22:40,890 --> 01:22:44,170
But it's a very simple idea
mechanically, very hard to do

1716
01:22:44,170 --> 01:22:46,440
that in a way that
is mechanically

1717
01:22:46,440 --> 01:22:48,230
robust and very accurate.

1718
01:22:48,230 --> 01:22:51,550
And that's the piece--

1719
01:22:51,550 --> 01:22:53,910
actually it was so critical to
make it accurate, they covered

1720
01:22:53,910 --> 01:22:55,350
these with those wooden boxes.

1721
01:22:55,350 --> 01:23:01,360
That's the piece that's
in the MIT Museum.

1722
01:23:01,360 --> 01:23:03,890
And then there's all these
other elements.

1723
01:23:03,890 --> 01:23:05,140
I may have a picture of it.

1724
01:23:11,570 --> 01:23:13,620
So there are all these
other elements.

1725
01:23:13,620 --> 01:23:15,790
You can take these integrators
and then you have a

1726
01:23:15,790 --> 01:23:19,790
multiplier, which is nothing but
a gear that connects one

1727
01:23:19,790 --> 01:23:21,590
rod to another in a ratio.

1728
01:23:21,590 --> 01:23:23,500
And you have these rods that
go through the middle.

1729
01:23:23,500 --> 01:23:25,760
They're almost like the
bus on a computer.

1730
01:23:25,760 --> 01:23:28,950
And you can connect these things
in all different ways

1731
01:23:28,950 --> 01:23:31,880
to evaluate a particular
equation.

1732
01:23:31,880 --> 01:23:34,810
In this case, this is just a
second order equation for a

1733
01:23:34,810 --> 01:23:36,980
falling body problem.

1734
01:23:36,980 --> 01:23:40,390
But you can mix and match this
thing and essentially program

1735
01:23:40,390 --> 01:23:43,860
it by rebuilding it around
these connecting rods.

1736
01:23:43,860 --> 01:23:47,690
And so, I'll show you a couple
of pictures of the--

1737
01:23:47,690 --> 01:23:48,940
oops.

1738
01:23:52,890 --> 01:23:55,450
Here is another view
of the integrator.

1739
01:23:55,450 --> 01:23:59,370
Here you can see the
disk and the little

1740
01:23:59,370 --> 01:24:00,250
wheel that takes off.

1741
01:24:00,250 --> 01:24:02,200
It actually has a real
knife edge on it, to

1742
01:24:02,200 --> 01:24:04,310
try to make it accurate.

1743
01:24:04,310 --> 01:24:07,340
One of the real problems with
those integrators is that they

1744
01:24:07,340 --> 01:24:09,150
can't drive much of a load.

1745
01:24:09,150 --> 01:24:11,820
If they slip at all, they
lose a lot of accuracy.

1746
01:24:11,820 --> 01:24:13,870
So here they have put these
things called torque

1747
01:24:13,870 --> 01:24:17,050
amplifiers, which are these very
clunky, exotic, kind of

1748
01:24:17,050 --> 01:24:20,000
cached in like devices that
amplify the torque.

1749
01:24:20,000 --> 01:24:22,220
And then they connect them in.

1750
01:24:22,220 --> 01:24:26,640
And where you might have in an
electrical analog computer,

1751
01:24:26,640 --> 01:24:30,530
there's a voltage that gets
pushed around, in a mechanical

1752
01:24:30,530 --> 01:24:34,330
analogue computer it's just the
rotation of these shafts

1753
01:24:34,330 --> 01:24:37,070
that carry the data from
one place to another.

1754
01:24:37,070 --> 01:24:43,060
And they do that by going into
this matrix of mechanical rods

1755
01:24:43,060 --> 01:24:44,410
that you see over there
on the left.

1756
01:24:44,410 --> 01:24:47,450
And each time they wanted, they
could kind of reprogram

1757
01:24:47,450 --> 01:24:48,600
the whole thing.

1758
01:24:48,600 --> 01:24:50,710
And here's another shot.

1759
01:24:50,710 --> 01:24:53,150
So here's a gear ratio that
would perform the

1760
01:24:53,150 --> 01:24:54,400
multiplication.

1761
01:24:54,400 --> 01:24:57,070
You can see that this stuff is
beautifully machined, very

1762
01:24:57,070 --> 01:24:59,092
interesting and carefully
done.

1763
01:24:59,092 --> 01:24:59,494
Yeah?

1764
01:24:59,494 --> 01:25:00,620
AUDIENCE: And they were doing
this in the electrical

1765
01:25:00,620 --> 01:25:00,940
department.

1766
01:25:00,940 --> 01:25:02,200
PROFESSOR: This is in electrical
engineering

1767
01:25:02,200 --> 01:25:03,050
department, right.

1768
01:25:03,050 --> 01:25:04,421
AUDIENCE: It seems very much
like a mechanical project.

1769
01:25:04,421 --> 01:25:05,655
PROFESSOR: It does seem like
a mechanical project.

1770
01:25:05,655 --> 01:25:07,330
That's a very good point.

1771
01:25:07,330 --> 01:25:11,820
And Bush actually said, he was
very clear, he said, I want my

1772
01:25:11,820 --> 01:25:15,680
engineers to be able to design
mathematical equations the way

1773
01:25:15,680 --> 01:25:17,110
they design circuits.

1774
01:25:17,110 --> 01:25:20,310
And he tried to make a
circuit design-type

1775
01:25:20,310 --> 01:25:22,210
language, visual language--

1776
01:25:22,210 --> 01:25:23,220
I redrew this picture.

1777
01:25:23,220 --> 01:25:24,710
But I redrew it from one
of their papers.

1778
01:25:24,710 --> 01:25:28,180
It's the same terminology--

1779
01:25:28,180 --> 01:25:31,410
that you could actually design
these equations and make these

1780
01:25:31,410 --> 01:25:32,570
big kind of systems.

1781
01:25:32,570 --> 01:25:35,360
And already you're beginning
to see a move toward

1782
01:25:35,360 --> 01:25:36,530
generality.

1783
01:25:36,530 --> 01:25:40,670
So he says, this is not a device
to evaluate integrals

1784
01:25:40,670 --> 01:25:43,450
for studying transience in the
electric power industry.

1785
01:25:43,450 --> 01:25:45,650
This is a research device
for a general

1786
01:25:45,650 --> 01:25:47,480
purpose calculating machine.

1787
01:25:47,480 --> 01:25:49,570
And it's interesting, he goes
to the Rockefeller--

1788
01:25:49,570 --> 01:25:52,860
well, I'll cover that
in a minute.

1789
01:25:52,860 --> 01:25:55,370
So already you're beginning to
see this guy beginning to

1790
01:25:55,370 --> 01:25:58,960
think in a more general, kind
of fundamental terms, as

1791
01:25:58,960 --> 01:26:01,180
opposed to in these
specific terms.

1792
01:26:01,180 --> 01:26:03,870
And this is within just a couple
of years of Compton

1793
01:26:03,870 --> 01:26:06,550
coming here to MIT.

1794
01:26:06,550 --> 01:26:09,160
Here's the output
of the device.

1795
01:26:09,160 --> 01:26:12,280
You can see it's basically
creating a family of curves.

1796
01:26:12,280 --> 01:26:15,350
And they were very into
the fact that they

1797
01:26:15,350 --> 01:26:16,570
didn't need any algebra.

1798
01:26:16,570 --> 01:26:18,320
They didn't need
any equations.

1799
01:26:18,320 --> 01:26:20,250
They said the world is
basically analog.

1800
01:26:20,250 --> 01:26:21,190
They didn't use that term.

1801
01:26:21,190 --> 01:26:23,170
And said, the world
is continuous.

1802
01:26:23,170 --> 01:26:25,850
Our integrator is
continuous and

1803
01:26:25,850 --> 01:26:28,530
produces continuous outputs.

1804
01:26:28,530 --> 01:26:32,330
And again, you can
see this kind of

1805
01:26:32,330 --> 01:26:33,660
graphical user interface.

1806
01:26:33,660 --> 01:26:35,850
There's a little magnifying
glass there.

1807
01:26:35,850 --> 01:26:38,700
And he's kind of following these
curves, which was a kind

1808
01:26:38,700 --> 01:26:40,800
of manual input.

1809
01:26:40,800 --> 01:26:43,410
Bush is kind of looking over
the shoulder there.

1810
01:26:43,410 --> 01:26:44,920
And they would evaluate
all these

1811
01:26:44,920 --> 01:26:46,170
different kinds of curves.

1812
01:26:50,950 --> 01:26:53,260
Here's another view, where
they're all connected by an

1813
01:26:53,260 --> 01:26:54,930
electrical audio system.

1814
01:26:54,930 --> 01:26:57,080
And there's one guy in the
center, telling everybody OK,

1815
01:26:57,080 --> 01:26:58,610
follow your curves now.

1816
01:26:58,610 --> 01:27:01,100
And here, he's not doing it
by hand so much anymore.

1817
01:27:01,100 --> 01:27:03,790
He's turning a little crank
to trace all the curves.

1818
01:27:03,790 --> 01:27:07,370
And you can begin to see by the
curves, they can do some

1819
01:27:07,370 --> 01:27:08,470
pretty complicated things.

1820
01:27:08,470 --> 01:27:11,620
And there's a whole kind of
science of analog computing

1821
01:27:11,620 --> 01:27:15,420
that comes up in the '30s around
these machines, where

1822
01:27:15,420 --> 01:27:17,730
they measure the number of
integrators the way you would

1823
01:27:17,730 --> 01:27:21,120
measure the number of megahertz
of processor that

1824
01:27:21,120 --> 01:27:22,900
you have in your computer.

1825
01:27:22,900 --> 01:27:25,920
Because the integrator was the
expensive thing that kind of

1826
01:27:25,920 --> 01:27:29,060
described what order equation
you could possibly model with

1827
01:27:29,060 --> 01:27:30,000
these things.

1828
01:27:30,000 --> 01:27:34,330
And people start to use them
to model electron orbits in

1829
01:27:34,330 --> 01:27:35,420
atomic physics.

1830
01:27:35,420 --> 01:27:38,190
They used them particularly
for ballistics.

1831
01:27:38,190 --> 01:27:39,690
The Army gets really
interested.

1832
01:27:39,690 --> 01:27:42,630
And they have to calculate
ballistic equations for all

1833
01:27:42,630 --> 01:27:44,470
different kinds of
guns and shells.

1834
01:27:44,470 --> 01:27:47,120
And this makes it a lot
more convenient.

1835
01:27:47,120 --> 01:27:52,830
And so you begin to see the move
away from, even with the

1836
01:27:52,830 --> 01:27:56,080
same research group, the same
people literally, from this

1837
01:27:56,080 --> 01:27:58,840
kind of specific industry
oriented work toward more

1838
01:27:58,840 --> 01:28:01,230
general work in what
they think of as a

1839
01:28:01,230 --> 01:28:04,140
general purpose computing.

1840
01:28:04,140 --> 01:28:07,760
This is kind of the most famous
picture of the device.

1841
01:28:07,760 --> 01:28:10,200
And you can see there
three integrators

1842
01:28:10,200 --> 01:28:11,450
inside their glass cases.

1843
01:28:11,450 --> 01:28:15,200
Those integrated became so
precise that you had to have

1844
01:28:15,200 --> 01:28:17,720
them covered, free of dust, and

1845
01:28:17,720 --> 01:28:20,300
really very well protected.

1846
01:28:20,300 --> 01:28:22,580
And it turns out there was a
integrator that was developed

1847
01:28:22,580 --> 01:28:25,190
secretly by the Navy for
controlling the big guns on

1848
01:28:25,190 --> 01:28:27,500
battleships, that was better
than this one, that they

1849
01:28:27,500 --> 01:28:30,550
weren't really aware yet.

1850
01:28:30,550 --> 01:28:34,590
And has nobody ever see
a tubal integrator?

1851
01:28:34,590 --> 01:28:36,915
It's a whole other kind of
mechanism that you can use to

1852
01:28:36,915 --> 01:28:38,910
do mechanical integration.

1853
01:28:38,910 --> 01:28:42,250
So then this project spurs a
whole bunch of different other

1854
01:28:42,250 --> 01:28:44,830
kinds of projects.

1855
01:28:44,830 --> 01:28:50,820
One is called the cinema
intergraph, where the idea is

1856
01:28:50,820 --> 01:28:53,460
instead of integrating with
these kind of problematic

1857
01:28:53,460 --> 01:28:56,690
mechanical integrators, you
integrate using this exotic

1858
01:28:56,690 --> 01:28:57,710
new technology.

1859
01:28:57,710 --> 01:29:00,330
Anybody want to guess what
that is over on the left?

1860
01:29:00,330 --> 01:29:02,440
It's a photo cell.

1861
01:29:02,440 --> 01:29:07,720
And they would actually plot
the mathematical curves as

1862
01:29:07,720 --> 01:29:10,780
images on this 35
millimeter film.

1863
01:29:10,780 --> 01:29:13,600
And then shine a light through
it and plot the area under the

1864
01:29:13,600 --> 01:29:18,460
curves by integrating the charge
that came through the

1865
01:29:18,460 --> 01:29:20,030
photo cell.

1866
01:29:20,030 --> 01:29:23,730
And this is the guy
who made it.

1867
01:29:23,730 --> 01:29:26,730
As he said, it was mostly
a machine for producing

1868
01:29:26,730 --> 01:29:27,155
dissertations.

1869
01:29:27,155 --> 01:29:30,100
It had essentially no
practical output.

1870
01:29:30,100 --> 01:29:33,310
But it was important in that,
this guy is named Gordon

1871
01:29:33,310 --> 01:29:37,550
Brown, who is a student of
Harold Hazen, and becomes the

1872
01:29:37,550 --> 01:29:40,330
dean of engineering right
at the end of the

1873
01:29:40,330 --> 01:29:41,480
Second World War.

1874
01:29:41,480 --> 01:29:44,090
And is the guy who closes down
all that old-fashioned

1875
01:29:44,090 --> 01:29:45,030
electrical machinery.

1876
01:29:45,030 --> 01:29:46,640
We read about him
a little bit.

1877
01:29:46,640 --> 01:29:47,870
I think it was in the
[? Laquier ?]

1878
01:29:47,870 --> 01:29:49,420
article.

1879
01:29:49,420 --> 01:29:53,090
And kind of is the dean of
engineering when they kind of

1880
01:29:53,090 --> 01:29:55,580
formalized a lot of things after
the Second World War.

1881
01:29:58,600 --> 01:30:00,490
And there's another picture
of the cinema intergraph.

1882
01:30:00,490 --> 01:30:03,450
Also one of his advisers on
there was Norbert Wiener, who

1883
01:30:03,450 --> 01:30:05,630
was also very closely related
to Bush's work.

1884
01:30:05,630 --> 01:30:08,930
And a lot of his earlier ideas
of cybernetics also came out

1885
01:30:08,930 --> 01:30:11,220
of this work.

1886
01:30:11,220 --> 01:30:13,460
This is Harold Hazen again.

1887
01:30:13,460 --> 01:30:15,840
It's called an automatic
curve follower.

1888
01:30:15,840 --> 01:30:19,260
And his idea is, gee, maybe I
could make these photo cells

1889
01:30:19,260 --> 01:30:22,230
just follow these curves
automatically.

1890
01:30:22,230 --> 01:30:26,030
And today, you can go to the
Science Museum and buy a

1891
01:30:26,030 --> 01:30:28,180
little robot kit with a
robot that follows a

1892
01:30:28,180 --> 01:30:29,370
line across the floor.

1893
01:30:29,370 --> 01:30:31,720
This is the first
one of those.

1894
01:30:31,720 --> 01:30:34,300
But what's much more interesting
and important than

1895
01:30:34,300 --> 01:30:38,440
that about this, was that in
order to do this and order to

1896
01:30:38,440 --> 01:30:41,120
make the differential analyzer
work, it's the amount of

1897
01:30:41,120 --> 01:30:43,090
friction that builds up
in the mechanisms.

1898
01:30:43,090 --> 01:30:46,260
And it gets to a point where you
basically just can't turn

1899
01:30:46,260 --> 01:30:47,040
the crank anymore.

1900
01:30:47,040 --> 01:30:49,190
And you start to lose
a lot of accuracy.

1901
01:30:49,190 --> 01:30:50,870
You don't lose it
in the gears.

1902
01:30:50,870 --> 01:30:52,500
Eventually you would, because
they would break.

1903
01:30:52,500 --> 01:30:55,090
But you lose it in all these
other systems, particularly

1904
01:30:55,090 --> 01:30:55,930
the integrator.

1905
01:30:55,930 --> 01:30:59,770
So what they do is they put what
they call followers or

1906
01:30:59,770 --> 01:31:03,510
servomechanisms between the
stages, where they can kind of

1907
01:31:03,510 --> 01:31:08,300
renew the signal and add
energy to the system.

1908
01:31:08,300 --> 01:31:11,250
Because with a mechanical
system, if you don't have any

1909
01:31:11,250 --> 01:31:13,590
energy, it's just going
to eventually--

1910
01:31:13,590 --> 01:31:14,870
the energy is all dissipated.

1911
01:31:14,870 --> 01:31:18,510
But if you can carry the data
from one point to another and

1912
01:31:18,510 --> 01:31:21,050
just add energy and make it
constantly stronger, you can

1913
01:31:21,050 --> 01:31:22,700
build them as big as you want.

1914
01:31:22,700 --> 01:31:25,830
And it's between that problem
and this problem that Hazen

1915
01:31:25,830 --> 01:31:28,760
actually writes the first paper
ever on what he calls

1916
01:31:28,760 --> 01:31:31,900
the theory of servomechanisms,
which you now what know as

1917
01:31:31,900 --> 01:31:33,040
feedback control theory.

1918
01:31:33,040 --> 01:31:36,310
And anybody take a course on
that, or probably in every

1919
01:31:36,310 --> 01:31:38,890
engineering course you're taking
something in feedback

1920
01:31:38,890 --> 01:31:40,260
control theory.

1921
01:31:40,260 --> 01:31:42,690
And he became interested in
these basic problems.

1922
01:31:42,690 --> 01:31:46,210
Until that point, people had
governors on steam engines.

1923
01:31:46,210 --> 01:31:48,520
They had different kinds of
regulators in this electric

1924
01:31:48,520 --> 01:31:50,120
power network they
were working on.

1925
01:31:50,120 --> 01:31:53,030
But nobody had thought of, let's
write about the theory

1926
01:31:53,030 --> 01:31:56,110
of how this feedback mechanism
works overall.

1927
01:31:56,110 --> 01:31:58,070
And there again, there's another
one of these, a little

1928
01:31:58,070 --> 01:32:00,640
more detailed example of an
intellectual way that

1929
01:32:00,640 --> 01:32:03,410
Compton's move was not just
administrative, he didn't just

1930
01:32:03,410 --> 01:32:05,090
say let's stop working
with industry

1931
01:32:05,090 --> 01:32:06,210
and think about science.

1932
01:32:06,210 --> 01:32:08,600
He actually influenced these
people in their labs very

1933
01:32:08,600 --> 01:32:11,430
quickly, within a couple years,
to start thinking about

1934
01:32:11,430 --> 01:32:13,930
fundamental problems as opposed
to just these kind of

1935
01:32:13,930 --> 01:32:14,990
immediate problems.

1936
01:32:14,990 --> 01:32:17,623
Hazen also becomes dean of
engineering at MIT during the

1937
01:32:17,623 --> 01:32:20,401
Second World War and head of
the electrical engineering

1938
01:32:20,401 --> 01:32:21,790
department.

1939
01:32:21,790 --> 01:32:25,630
Here's his model of
servomechanisms.

1940
01:32:25,630 --> 01:32:29,210
Also in that group, looking at
again this electric power

1941
01:32:29,210 --> 01:32:33,230
problem, and saw something
literally in the electrical

1942
01:32:33,230 --> 01:32:36,700
power problem that was
bigger than simply

1943
01:32:36,700 --> 01:32:37,600
the immediate problem.

1944
01:32:37,600 --> 01:32:39,070
Anybody want to get
who this is?

1945
01:32:42,060 --> 01:32:43,345
Let me describe what
he's doing and

1946
01:32:43,345 --> 01:32:44,190
maybe then you'll guess?

1947
01:32:44,190 --> 01:32:46,670
So you can actually see in this
picture, he says, I'm

1948
01:32:46,670 --> 01:32:47,870
going to look at these
generators.

1949
01:32:47,870 --> 01:32:49,470
And the problem is when
they have these

1950
01:32:49,470 --> 01:32:50,680
transients of these--

1951
01:32:50,680 --> 01:32:54,980
they fall out of step, so that
in an A/C system, everything

1952
01:32:54,980 --> 01:32:56,720
has to be running in
perfect synchrony.

1953
01:32:56,720 --> 01:32:58,840
And if it's not running
synchronized, you get all

1954
01:32:58,840 --> 01:32:59,630
kinds of issues.

1955
01:32:59,630 --> 01:33:06,430
And he says, I'm going to tape
cardboard N and S. So that I'm

1956
01:33:06,430 --> 01:33:09,570
going to tape them to each of
the poles on the generator and

1957
01:33:09,570 --> 01:33:11,950
then let the generator
spin really fast.

1958
01:33:11,950 --> 01:33:14,220
And then I'm going to shine a
light on it and I'm going to

1959
01:33:14,220 --> 01:33:17,840
pulse the light at exactly
the same frequency as the

1960
01:33:17,840 --> 01:33:19,830
generator is supposed
to be spinning.

1961
01:33:19,830 --> 01:33:22,060
And that will freeze the
N and S in your eye

1962
01:33:22,060 --> 01:33:23,240
when you look at it.

1963
01:33:23,240 --> 01:33:25,720
And then if there's a phasing
problem, you'll see the N and

1964
01:33:25,720 --> 01:33:27,810
the S moving back and forth.

1965
01:33:27,810 --> 01:33:29,195
Now, anybody want to
guess who this is?

1966
01:33:29,195 --> 01:33:29,510
AUDIENCE: Edgerton.

1967
01:33:29,510 --> 01:33:30,580
PROFESSOR: This is
Edgerton, right?

1968
01:33:30,580 --> 01:33:34,320
And this is the first
application he have of this

1969
01:33:34,320 --> 01:33:35,230
stroboscope.

1970
01:33:35,230 --> 01:33:37,340
And very soon, he says hey,
you know what, this

1971
01:33:37,340 --> 01:33:38,900
stroboscope thing is
really interesting.

1972
01:33:38,900 --> 01:33:40,950
I can make some innovations
there.

1973
01:33:40,950 --> 01:33:42,610
Forget about electric
power stuff.

1974
01:33:42,610 --> 01:33:46,620
I'm interested in high-speed
photography and generally

1975
01:33:46,620 --> 01:33:49,300
high-speed electrical
discharge.

1976
01:33:49,300 --> 01:33:51,020
AUDIENCE: It's like the first
timing light for a car.

1977
01:33:51,020 --> 01:33:51,390
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

1978
01:33:51,390 --> 01:33:53,790
It's exactly the same as the
timing light for a car.

1979
01:33:53,790 --> 01:33:55,560
Most of which are made
by EG&G, which

1980
01:33:55,560 --> 01:33:56,980
was Edgerton's company.

1981
01:33:56,980 --> 01:34:01,410
And so there again, he gets
interested in a bunch of

1982
01:34:01,410 --> 01:34:02,140
different things.

1983
01:34:02,140 --> 01:34:06,700
But all of them have in common
this idea of like how even

1984
01:34:06,700 --> 01:34:07,730
most of the flashes--

1985
01:34:07,730 --> 01:34:10,190
you don't see it so much in your
digital camera, with the

1986
01:34:10,190 --> 01:34:11,060
little teeny ones.

1987
01:34:11,060 --> 01:34:16,510
But if you ever have a big
flash, it fires and then you

1988
01:34:16,510 --> 01:34:18,020
hear it charging up.

1989
01:34:18,020 --> 01:34:19,000
And then it fires all again.

1990
01:34:19,000 --> 01:34:26,340
And Edgerton really became an
expert at very rapid discharge

1991
01:34:26,340 --> 01:34:28,080
of electrical energy.

1992
01:34:28,080 --> 01:34:30,180
I work a lot at the Undersea
World, where Edgerton did a

1993
01:34:30,180 --> 01:34:31,480
lot of work with sonar.

1994
01:34:31,480 --> 01:34:34,570
But the particular kind of sonar
he built was very much

1995
01:34:34,570 --> 01:34:37,350
like the flash bulb, in
that it was a sonar

1996
01:34:37,350 --> 01:34:39,070
that flashed the sound.

1997
01:34:39,070 --> 01:34:42,690
It's called side-scan sonar,
rather than continuous wave

1998
01:34:42,690 --> 01:34:45,300
sonar, would just gave
it all the time.

1999
01:34:45,300 --> 01:34:49,950
So for the plutonium bomb in
particular, the one during

2000
01:34:49,950 --> 01:34:52,710
World War II, and I think they
still are spherical, and you

2001
01:34:52,710 --> 01:34:54,730
had to implode this device.

2002
01:34:54,730 --> 01:34:57,470
And a guy at Harvard,
Kistiakowsky, made these

2003
01:34:57,470 --> 01:34:59,190
explosive lenses.

2004
01:34:59,190 --> 01:35:01,970
And you had to trigger them
all around this sphere at

2005
01:35:01,970 --> 01:35:03,830
exactly the same moment.

2006
01:35:03,830 --> 01:35:06,530
Otherwise, you were going to get
a lopsided shock wave and

2007
01:35:06,530 --> 01:35:08,590
you weren't going to implode
the thing perfectly.

2008
01:35:08,590 --> 01:35:11,230
And it was Edgerton's company
that designed the triggering

2009
01:35:11,230 --> 01:35:13,280
mechanisms for that
atomic bomb.

2010
01:35:13,280 --> 01:35:16,080
They also did high-speed
photography of the actual

2011
01:35:16,080 --> 01:35:16,830
mushroom clouds.

2012
01:35:16,830 --> 01:35:19,230
And it's amazing, sort of
frightening imagery that

2013
01:35:19,230 --> 01:35:22,970
they've collected all through
the Cold War about that.

2014
01:35:22,970 --> 01:35:25,090
And that was EG&G. It was
founded by Edgerton,

2015
01:35:25,090 --> 01:35:27,240
Germeshausen, and Grier,
two of his colleagues.

2016
01:35:27,240 --> 01:35:32,530
And the-- let's see,
what is it--

2017
01:35:32,530 --> 01:35:36,570
Building 37 is the building
they gave.

2018
01:35:36,570 --> 01:35:39,040
And there's a Grier room and
the Germeshausen room.

2019
01:35:39,040 --> 01:35:43,140
And I forget which the
auditorium is called.

2020
01:35:43,140 --> 01:35:44,970
But that work started here.

2021
01:35:44,970 --> 01:35:47,520
And then Edgerton
developed that.

2022
01:35:47,520 --> 01:35:51,305
And interestingly, one of the
students, a guy named Marty

2023
01:35:51,305 --> 01:35:53,850
Klein, who is the sort of the
father of that side-scan

2024
01:35:53,850 --> 01:35:54,970
sonar, is a good
friend of mine.

2025
01:35:54,970 --> 01:35:57,880
And he always says, Edgerton
was a time domain man.

2026
01:35:57,880 --> 01:35:59,760
He never thought in the
frequency domain.

2027
01:35:59,760 --> 01:36:01,300
For those of you who are
EEs, you'll know

2028
01:36:01,300 --> 01:36:02,340
what that refers to.

2029
01:36:02,340 --> 01:36:06,790
And that really came out this
legacy from Bush's lab of

2030
01:36:06,790 --> 01:36:08,970
thinking about transience
on these lines.

2031
01:36:08,970 --> 01:36:11,900
There's nothing to say about
electric power systems in the

2032
01:36:11,900 --> 01:36:14,350
frequency domain, because
it's all 60 Hertz.

2033
01:36:14,350 --> 01:36:17,080
It's all exactly the same
frequency, unlike radio which

2034
01:36:17,080 --> 01:36:19,720
is all about frequency domain.

2035
01:36:19,720 --> 01:36:20,950
He thought in the time domain.

2036
01:36:20,950 --> 01:36:23,270
And everything about
the electronics--

2037
01:36:23,270 --> 01:36:25,330
anybody work in the Edgerton
lab these days or

2038
01:36:25,330 --> 01:36:27,540
take a class there?

2039
01:36:27,540 --> 01:36:30,520
All that stuff is time domain
stuff, kind of epitomized by

2040
01:36:30,520 --> 01:36:31,770
the high-speed photography.

2041
01:36:35,380 --> 01:36:39,370
Here's an image again of the
Army getting interested at the

2042
01:36:39,370 --> 01:36:43,730
Aberdeen Proving Ground, down
in Maryland, which did a lot

2043
01:36:43,730 --> 01:36:45,910
of the measurement
for ballistics.

2044
01:36:45,910 --> 01:36:49,230
They bought five or six of these
or they hired people and

2045
01:36:49,230 --> 01:36:51,280
they made their own
copies of them.

2046
01:36:51,280 --> 01:36:53,520
Within a few years, during the
'30s, they were all over the

2047
01:36:53,520 --> 01:36:56,615
place, not just in
electric power.

2048
01:36:56,615 --> 01:36:58,320
Yeah?

2049
01:36:58,320 --> 01:37:00,330
AUDIENCE: When do you begin
to see military

2050
01:37:00,330 --> 01:37:04,400
funding of this work?

2051
01:37:04,400 --> 01:37:06,190
Does it start with Bush's
differential?

2052
01:37:06,190 --> 01:37:06,780
No, OK.

2053
01:37:06,780 --> 01:37:07,950
PROFESSOR: Really not
until the war.

2054
01:37:07,950 --> 01:37:11,980
So I'll come to the funding
issue in a second, because

2055
01:37:11,980 --> 01:37:13,030
it's pretty interesting.

2056
01:37:13,030 --> 01:37:19,280
They also, with Bush's
consulting, built the control

2057
01:37:19,280 --> 01:37:23,230
system for the Palomar
telescope, which at the time

2058
01:37:23,230 --> 01:37:25,220
was the biggest telescope
ever built.

2059
01:37:25,220 --> 01:37:27,370
It didn't even become
operational until after the

2060
01:37:27,370 --> 01:37:28,470
Second World War.

2061
01:37:28,470 --> 01:37:30,260
Anybody ever been there?

2062
01:37:30,260 --> 01:37:33,130
It's in California, outside
of San Diego.

2063
01:37:33,130 --> 01:37:37,030
And you have this enormous,
three-story high telescope.

2064
01:37:37,030 --> 01:37:39,510
And you've got to point it
with great accuracy.

2065
01:37:39,510 --> 01:37:42,260
And it actually had a lot of
similarities to the problems

2066
01:37:42,260 --> 01:37:43,510
they were working on there.

2067
01:37:48,060 --> 01:37:51,250
So there's also a funding
story here.

2068
01:37:51,250 --> 01:37:53,890
Warren Weaver is also
mentioned in the--

2069
01:37:53,890 --> 01:37:56,000
I'm forgetting if it was the
Servos or the [? Laquier ?]

2070
01:37:56,000 --> 01:37:58,190
article from the Rockefeller
Foundation.

2071
01:37:58,190 --> 01:37:59,010
And they talk about it.

2072
01:37:59,010 --> 01:37:59,540
It was [? Laquier. ?]

2073
01:37:59,540 --> 01:38:04,810
He said, as soon as Compton
came in, he went to the

2074
01:38:04,810 --> 01:38:08,720
Rockefeller Foundation and said,
I need $175,000 for this

2075
01:38:08,720 --> 01:38:10,040
new initiative.

2076
01:38:10,040 --> 01:38:12,150
And if you guys back
me on this--

2077
01:38:12,150 --> 01:38:14,870
at the time, there was no
National Science Foundation.

2078
01:38:14,870 --> 01:38:17,950
There was no public money other
than from the military,

2079
01:38:17,950 --> 01:38:20,210
available for research.

2080
01:38:20,210 --> 01:38:23,690
But the Rockefeller Foundation
was basically the equivalent

2081
01:38:23,690 --> 01:38:26,080
of the NSF today, a
private foundation

2082
01:38:26,080 --> 01:38:27,260
handing out these checks.

2083
01:38:27,260 --> 01:38:29,880
And Bush went to Weaver.

2084
01:38:29,880 --> 01:38:32,210
And he went to Weaver with
this early version of the

2085
01:38:32,210 --> 01:38:33,950
differential analyzer.

2086
01:38:33,950 --> 01:38:36,110
And it was about 1931.

2087
01:38:36,110 --> 01:38:39,280
And Weaver says,
not interested.

2088
01:38:39,280 --> 01:38:45,070
That engineering stuff is best
handled by industrial funding.

2089
01:38:45,070 --> 01:38:46,960
We don't support anything
that looks

2090
01:38:46,960 --> 01:38:48,220
like engineering research.

2091
01:38:48,220 --> 01:38:52,750
We only support fundamental
research.

2092
01:38:52,750 --> 01:38:55,180
Why don't you go find an
electric power company or

2093
01:38:55,180 --> 01:38:57,330
somebody to give it to you?

2094
01:38:57,330 --> 01:39:02,280
Two years later, Bush goes back
to Weaver and says oh,

2095
01:39:02,280 --> 01:39:04,460
this is not a machine for
electric power research.

2096
01:39:04,460 --> 01:39:05,300
This is a machine for

2097
01:39:05,300 --> 01:39:08,510
fundamental research in computing.

2098
01:39:08,510 --> 01:39:10,520
And Weaver says, oh, well if
you're going to put it that

2099
01:39:10,520 --> 01:39:13,830
way, here's $100,000.

2100
01:39:13,830 --> 01:39:16,030
At the depths of the Depression,
that a lot of

2101
01:39:16,030 --> 01:39:19,405
money for a research program,
far beyond what anybody-- in

2102
01:39:19,405 --> 01:39:22,170
fact, I think there's a
statistic in there that before

2103
01:39:22,170 --> 01:39:25,350
the war, the entire federal
funding for all of MIT was

2104
01:39:25,350 --> 01:39:27,060
only $40,000 a year.

2105
01:39:27,060 --> 01:39:31,880
And they gave Bush, not just
$100,000, but about $250,000

2106
01:39:31,880 --> 01:39:35,710
in the middle of the '30s, to
build the next version, which

2107
01:39:35,710 --> 01:39:37,340
became known as the Rockefeller

2108
01:39:37,340 --> 01:39:39,510
differential analyzer.

2109
01:39:39,510 --> 01:39:42,900
And here you see, it looks a
little bit more sophisticated.

2110
01:39:42,900 --> 01:39:45,550
Instead of those earlier tables,
they called them input

2111
01:39:45,550 --> 01:39:47,440
tables, here you have
a rotating drum.

2112
01:39:47,440 --> 01:39:50,130
There's still a person required
to sit there and turn

2113
01:39:50,130 --> 01:39:51,740
the handle.

2114
01:39:51,740 --> 01:39:56,600
But the basic model was
a lot more electrical.

2115
01:39:56,600 --> 01:39:59,420
And also interestingly, the
operators of these machines

2116
01:39:59,420 --> 01:40:00,980
changed from men to women.

2117
01:40:00,980 --> 01:40:02,970
So they're no longer graduate
students operating them.

2118
01:40:02,970 --> 01:40:05,680
They're much more what they
called human computers at the

2119
01:40:05,680 --> 01:40:07,040
time, operating them.

2120
01:40:07,040 --> 01:40:08,670
But you can see there,
a similar idea.

2121
01:40:08,670 --> 01:40:10,220
There are curves on this drum.

2122
01:40:10,220 --> 01:40:14,335
The person looks at the curves
and is providing the input to

2123
01:40:14,335 --> 01:40:18,950
the machine by matching the
pointer to the curve.

2124
01:40:18,950 --> 01:40:21,130
And the way this machine
worked, is also really

2125
01:40:21,130 --> 01:40:22,175
interesting.

2126
01:40:22,175 --> 01:40:26,570
A lot like the other one, but
instead of that matrix of

2127
01:40:26,570 --> 01:40:33,330
circular rods in the middle,
it's a crossbar switch.

2128
01:40:33,330 --> 01:40:35,780
Anybody know what industry a
crossbar switch comes from?

2129
01:40:38,881 --> 01:40:41,080
It's a telephone switch.

2130
01:40:41,080 --> 01:40:43,860
And its electrical switch that
basically says, I got all

2131
01:40:43,860 --> 01:40:45,940
these inputs across the top and
all these inputs across

2132
01:40:45,940 --> 01:40:46,690
the bottom.

2133
01:40:46,690 --> 01:40:50,430
I can connect anyone to anyone,
in fact in this case

2134
01:40:50,430 --> 01:40:52,280
using a punched paper tape.

2135
01:40:52,280 --> 01:40:54,460
And so they get the
prototype crossbar

2136
01:40:54,460 --> 01:40:55,790
switch from Bell Labs.

2137
01:40:55,790 --> 01:40:58,090
It was a pretty big revolution
in telephone

2138
01:40:58,090 --> 01:40:59,400
switching at the time.

2139
01:40:59,400 --> 01:41:03,300
They had built this crossbar
and donated it to MIT.

2140
01:41:03,300 --> 01:41:05,200
And what they did was they
said, we're just going to

2141
01:41:05,200 --> 01:41:08,550
adapt each of these mechanical
elements-- in fact, the

2142
01:41:08,550 --> 01:41:10,160
integrators were still
mechanical--

2143
01:41:10,160 --> 01:41:12,230
but we're going to give them
electrical outputs.

2144
01:41:12,230 --> 01:41:14,900
Instead of the quantities
being represented by the

2145
01:41:14,900 --> 01:41:17,050
rotation angle of the
rod, it's now

2146
01:41:17,050 --> 01:41:18,650
represented by a voltage.

2147
01:41:18,650 --> 01:41:21,690
We'll feed all the voltages
into the crossbar switch.

2148
01:41:21,690 --> 01:41:25,710
And then you configure the
crossbar switch by reading a

2149
01:41:25,710 --> 01:41:27,220
paper tape into it.

2150
01:41:27,220 --> 01:41:32,070
And so you can basically model
any equation by some set of

2151
01:41:32,070 --> 01:41:35,470
switch closings on the crossbar
switch and you

2152
01:41:35,470 --> 01:41:37,280
program those by a paper tape.

2153
01:41:37,280 --> 01:41:40,730
And now, you're beginning to see
the beginning of digital

2154
01:41:40,730 --> 01:41:43,400
switching coming into -- there
wasn't even a word for

2155
01:41:43,400 --> 01:41:44,780
"digital" at the time--

2156
01:41:44,780 --> 01:41:47,640
coming into this idea of
analogue computing.

2157
01:41:47,640 --> 01:41:50,600
And so then the problem for the
programmer becomes, they

2158
01:41:50,600 --> 01:41:53,590
have this continuous analog
equation across the top.

2159
01:41:53,590 --> 01:42:01,520
I need to translate it into
these paper tapes.

2160
01:42:01,520 --> 01:42:03,200
And that's kind of an
interesting problem, how do I

2161
01:42:03,200 --> 01:42:07,760
think about the transformation
from a set of equations into a

2162
01:42:07,760 --> 01:42:10,940
set of switch closures?

2163
01:42:10,940 --> 01:42:15,080
And this young master student
looks at it and he says well,

2164
01:42:15,080 --> 01:42:16,925
I can actually make
this kind of--

2165
01:42:16,925 --> 01:42:19,300
he calls it a relay algebra.

2166
01:42:19,300 --> 01:42:26,310
And I'm going to design a little
kind of mechanical

2167
01:42:26,310 --> 01:42:29,200
notation that will allow me
to design these circuits.

2168
01:42:29,200 --> 01:42:32,520
And you know that totally
useless stuff that I studied

2169
01:42:32,520 --> 01:42:34,940
in mathematics they called
Boolean algebra, from the 19th

2170
01:42:34,940 --> 01:42:38,960
century, is actually kind
of useful here.

2171
01:42:38,960 --> 01:42:42,410
And I'm going to call a closed
switch, a 1 and an open

2172
01:42:42,410 --> 01:42:44,270
switch, a 0.

2173
01:42:44,270 --> 01:42:47,030
And that allows you to
manipulate the whole thing

2174
01:42:47,030 --> 01:42:49,060
mathematically.

2175
01:42:49,060 --> 01:42:50,970
Anybody know who this is?

2176
01:42:50,970 --> 01:42:52,250
You maybe the name flash by.

2177
01:42:52,250 --> 01:42:53,410
AUDIENCE: You mean
Claude Shannon?

2178
01:42:53,410 --> 01:42:56,190
PROFESSOR: Yeah, it's actually
Claude Shannon, writes his

2179
01:42:56,190 --> 01:43:00,320
master's thesis on exactly
this problem.

2180
01:43:00,320 --> 01:43:02,760
And many people call this the
most significant master's

2181
01:43:02,760 --> 01:43:04,300
thesis ever written in
electrical engineering.

2182
01:43:04,300 --> 01:43:07,900
The master's thesis basically
lays down the entire

2183
01:43:07,900 --> 01:43:11,850
groundwork for the design of
digital systems in 1936 and

2184
01:43:11,850 --> 01:43:14,690
based on the problems that are
raised by designing this

2185
01:43:14,690 --> 01:43:17,060
computational machine.

2186
01:43:17,060 --> 01:43:19,850
And he immediately gets hired by
Bell Labs and starts to go

2187
01:43:19,850 --> 01:43:22,380
work there and think about how
to design switching circuits.

2188
01:43:22,380 --> 01:43:25,640
And the kind of counterpart at
Bell Labs right at that moment

2189
01:43:25,640 --> 01:43:28,230
reads this thesis and says, I'm
going to call this kind of

2190
01:43:28,230 --> 01:43:30,160
electronics digital.

2191
01:43:30,160 --> 01:43:33,080
And actually invents the word
"digital" to describe that

2192
01:43:33,080 --> 01:43:33,950
kind of electronics.

2193
01:43:33,950 --> 01:43:36,440
So here's a case of--

2194
01:43:36,440 --> 01:43:38,620
again, 1936, Karl Compton
has only been

2195
01:43:38,620 --> 01:43:40,360
at MIT for six years.

2196
01:43:40,360 --> 01:43:43,000
But he's already pushed this
particular laboratory and this

2197
01:43:43,000 --> 01:43:45,690
particular set of students to
start thinking about their

2198
01:43:45,690 --> 01:43:47,190
work in a different way.

2199
01:43:47,190 --> 01:43:54,410
Much less specific to one
industry specific to solving

2200
01:43:54,410 --> 01:43:57,720
particular applications, and
more generally thinking about

2201
01:43:57,720 --> 01:44:00,500
the fundamentals, the
mathematics, with applications

2202
01:44:00,500 --> 01:44:04,110
to lots and lots
of other areas.

2203
01:44:04,110 --> 01:44:07,920
So that's just one case there,
I thought I would show you.

2204
01:44:07,920 --> 01:44:10,950
And then, all those people are
also then people who get very

2205
01:44:10,950 --> 01:44:13,090
involved in the early
digital computing.

2206
01:44:13,090 --> 01:44:15,430
Once the war starts, basically
they all go to

2207
01:44:15,430 --> 01:44:16,730
Washington with Bush.

2208
01:44:16,730 --> 01:44:19,940
Some of them stay here and
get very involved.

2209
01:44:19,940 --> 01:44:23,290
But we'll cover that in the next
time we actually meet.

2210
01:44:23,290 --> 01:44:27,518
Questions, comments
about that?

2211
01:44:27,518 --> 01:44:30,906
AUDIENCE: Is that the same
servomechanism laboratory that

2212
01:44:30,906 --> 01:44:33,480
goes and creates
the Whirlwind?

2213
01:44:33,480 --> 01:44:33,860
PROFESSOR: Yeah.

2214
01:44:33,860 --> 01:44:36,010
The earlier question, it's
exactly that laboratory.

2215
01:44:36,010 --> 01:44:38,120
So Gordon Brown starts
the Servomechanism

2216
01:44:38,120 --> 01:44:42,680
Laboratory in 1940.

2217
01:44:42,680 --> 01:44:45,680
He the first course ever
on feedback control

2218
01:44:45,680 --> 01:44:53,590
theory at MIT in 1939.

2219
01:44:53,590 --> 01:44:54,730
And he writes this one paper.

2220
01:44:54,730 --> 01:44:57,320
In fact, it's called "Transient
Analysis of

2221
01:44:57,320 --> 01:45:00,820
Servomechanisms." So it still
carries that transient idea

2222
01:45:00,820 --> 01:45:02,980
from the early electric
power work.

2223
01:45:02,980 --> 01:45:08,000
And Warren Weaver shows up in
his lab and says, guess what?

2224
01:45:08,000 --> 01:45:09,060
I work for the government now.

2225
01:45:09,060 --> 01:45:09,600
I don't work for the

2226
01:45:09,600 --> 01:45:12,260
Rockefeller Foundation anymore.

2227
01:45:12,260 --> 01:45:14,050
That paper that you just wrote,
that you're about to

2228
01:45:14,050 --> 01:45:15,540
publish, it's classified.

2229
01:45:15,540 --> 01:45:17,260
You're not allowed to
publish it anymore.

2230
01:45:17,260 --> 01:45:22,200
And here's $500,000
to start your lab.

2231
01:45:22,200 --> 01:45:24,810
And Brown sort of takes it in.

2232
01:45:24,810 --> 01:45:28,010
And if it happens for an
historian, very valuable that

2233
01:45:28,010 --> 01:45:29,480
they classified that paper.

2234
01:45:29,480 --> 01:45:32,720
Because then, anyone who
got a copy of it,

2235
01:45:32,720 --> 01:45:34,330
had to sign it out.

2236
01:45:34,330 --> 01:45:36,800
So he writes this fundamental
paper.

2237
01:45:36,800 --> 01:45:40,460
And then you can actually trace
week by week, out in the

2238
01:45:40,460 --> 01:45:44,060
community, who's reading the
paper and see how they are

2239
01:45:44,060 --> 01:45:45,020
changing their work.

2240
01:45:45,020 --> 01:45:48,210
And they begin to have this
idea, again if you look at

2241
01:45:48,210 --> 01:45:51,550
feedback control, there's
governors on steam engines.

2242
01:45:51,550 --> 01:45:54,160
There's regulators
on arc lights.

2243
01:45:54,160 --> 01:45:57,110
There's automatic pilots
in airplanes.

2244
01:45:57,110 --> 01:45:59,770
And is even feedback amplifiers
in electrical

2245
01:45:59,770 --> 01:46:00,500
engineering.

2246
01:46:00,500 --> 01:46:02,810
But there's nobody who says,
hey, you know what, all that

2247
01:46:02,810 --> 01:46:04,550
stuff is really the same.

2248
01:46:04,550 --> 01:46:07,890
And now, we take for granted
as that's what you study in

2249
01:46:07,890 --> 01:46:08,400
control theory.

2250
01:46:08,400 --> 01:46:10,120
You don't study any one
of those areas.

2251
01:46:10,120 --> 01:46:12,020
You study the basic
phenomenon.

2252
01:46:12,020 --> 01:46:15,415
And that was the beginning
of what Brown was doing.

2253
01:46:15,415 --> 01:46:18,360
And it was really a coincidence
that right about

2254
01:46:18,360 --> 01:46:21,330
that moment, it goes underground
and it stays

2255
01:46:21,330 --> 01:46:22,990
underground for the whole war.

2256
01:46:22,990 --> 01:46:25,090
And that's really where when
Norbert Wiener comes out in

2257
01:46:25,090 --> 01:46:28,040
1948, and says, cybernetics,
feedback control, it's all

2258
01:46:28,040 --> 01:46:31,920
about this, he was just saying
something that had been secret

2259
01:46:31,920 --> 01:46:35,120
for eight years already
at that point.

2260
01:46:35,120 --> 01:46:38,030
But one of the things that got
me interested in this research

2261
01:46:38,030 --> 01:46:42,040
was, why was MIT's first digital
computer made by the

2262
01:46:42,040 --> 01:46:43,340
Servomechanisms Lab?

2263
01:46:43,340 --> 01:46:45,810
Because you don't necessarily
associate those two

2264
01:46:45,810 --> 01:46:46,920
things in your mind.

2265
01:46:46,920 --> 01:46:50,670
A servo, you think of as an
analog, mechanical thing and a

2266
01:46:50,670 --> 01:46:52,750
digital computer as this
funny electronic thing.

2267
01:46:52,750 --> 01:46:56,430
But during the war, it sort of--
it actually happens after

2268
01:46:56,430 --> 01:46:58,050
the war, but right
after the war.