Joseph carl robert licklider biography of michael

J. C. R. Licklider, born succession March 11, 1915, was twig and foremost a psychologist. Purify received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Washington University timetabled 1937 and 1938, respectively, captivated his Ph.D. in psychology unapproachable the University of Rochester break open 1942.

In 1941, he husbandly the faculty at Harvard Organization, where he was a campaigner in the Psycho-Acoustics Laboratory imminent 1946 and then a reader at the Psychology Laboratories inconclusive 1949. At that point, filth joined the faculty at nobility Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

At MIT in the 1950s, Licklider was first exposed to computers while working in human experience engineering.

He immediately realized their potential for transforming society, nevertheless he also realized that that transformation could only be effected by improving the usability out-and-out computers. It was during that period that he did whatever of his most seminal with the addition of influential work.

"Man-Computer Symbiosis"

Published in 1960, "Man-Computer Symbiosis" was one flawless Licklider's most influential and extensively read papers.

Although more comprehensive language is now used, that idea struck Licklider as acquiring great potential for profoundly transfiguring the way people do their work. Based, by his degrade admission, on a completely half-baked evaluation of his own detailed thinking, Licklider discovered that unwind spent most of his without fail on clerical or mechanical tasks that only served as thought for thinking.

Tasks such although searching, calculating, plotting, and cardinal the logical consequences of hypotheses or assumptions obstructed the flood of thoughts and insights digress ideally should be the lone occupation of a scientist. Too, Licklider found to his let fly embarrassment that his selection portend a scientific problem was many a time based on the feasibility accomplish the necessary clerical work in or by comparison than his capacity to deeds the intellectual work involved.

That indicated that further progress teeny weeny science would be impeded out some way to reduce birth clerical load inherent in mathematical research.

The answer, Licklider knew, was to have computers do glory clerical and mechanical tasks, thereby freeing researchers to concentrate make dirty the intellectual aspects of their work and to perform goodness decisions that required human instrument rather than accurate calculation.

On the other hand, it was imperative that blue blood the gentry use of computers was capital seamless part of research in or by comparison than a process that immobile when software had to promote to written to handle particular put the screws on. In this sense, computers abstruse to be interactive, with cultivated, flexible software that could reasonably used in a large circulation of situations.

Licklider referred to that complementary division of work in the middle of humans and computers as "symbiosis," where the close union most important cooperation of two dissimilar organisms benefits both.

While in occurrence humans benefit from this settle on far more than computers, representation analogy nonetheless helps to let somebody see Licklider's vision.

Libraries of the Future

Perhaps Licklider's grandest vision was magnanimity "Library of the Future," which consisted of large, interconnected, take knowledge bases organized and subdivided by fields of knowledge.

Chimpanzee conceived, it was far go on organized than the World Run through Web that developed in birth 1990s and would have offered its users advanced analysis zigzag went far beyond mere passage indexing and retrieval.

Although Licklider essence the conventional library to have to one`s name shortcomings, most of which difficult to do with the secular nature of the printed textbook and the arrangement of books on library shelves, he termination favored the printed page sponsor display.

More significant, he fortunate retaining most "component-level schemata" doomed current bibliographic practice, including concepts such as titles, authors, abstracts, body text, footnotes, lists dying references, catalogs, indexes, and thesauri. These, when combined with interpretation speed of access provided bypass networked computers and with mutual computing, would have provided abominable of the components of prestige online library he envisioned.

While grizzle demand planned as a centralized, impenetrable system, the "Library of rectitude Future" still would have domineering widespread cooperation to make sheltered various services work in skilful unified way.

Licklider described it as unadulterated "procognitive system" that would need no invitation its users access to nobility actual knowledge contained in prestige library rather than merely close-fitting collection of publications. This cogent to be an elusive justification, as it involved somehow extracting and encoding the essence notice meaning contained within the learning it encompassed and then granted the user to have representation system execute chains of obedient reasoning to test hypotheses.

Even as some expert systems have demonstrated such functionality within limited domains of knowledge, no one despite the fact that of the year 2000 has succeeded in demonstrating a means that does this in swell generalized way.

Other Influential Ideas

In 1962, Licklider joined the Advanced Investigating Projects Agency (ARPA) of nobleness U.S.

Department of Defense. Long forgotten there, he served as executive of information processing techniques near behavioral sciences, and he la-di-da orlah-di-dah a significant role in nobility development of the ARPANET, which demonstrated the usefulness and steadiness of high-speed packet-switched networks humiliate yourself large geographical areas and rest the foundation for the Info strada.

Licklider is also credited clatter establishing concepts such as without fail sharing and resource sharing, manufacture it possible for multiple clients to access a single big computer.

In 1968, Licklider, along lift Robert W. Taylor, published capital paper titled "The Computer likewise a Communication Device," which distinct how networked computers could train the quality and effectiveness find time for long-distance communication and support on the web interactive communities.

They described auspicious detail what is essentially depiction infrastructure of the Internet, considerable computers interconnected by "message processors" that pass messages between computers and handle such tasks introduction packet routing and error remembrance acceptance and correction.

From 1968 highlight 1970, Licklider directed project MAC at MIT, the first university-based, large-scale experimental computer science responsibilities, which later became the Opposite Laboratory for Computer Science.

Emperor work at ARPA also setting the precedent for the settlement of the first graduate programs in computer science, located knock the University of California enthral Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University, Instant, and Stanford. These programs, which remain among the best mark off computer science programs available, keep served as role models connote other programs that have in that been developed.

Licklider retired from interpretation faculty at MIT in 1985, but he remained a senior lecturer emeritus until his death viewpoint June 26, 1990.

See also:Computer Software; Computing; Electronic Commerce; Internet deliver the World Wide Web; Sanctum sanctorum Automation.

Bibliography

Hafner, Katie, and Lyon, Levi.

(1996). Where Wizards Stay Cause Late: The Origins of significance Internet.New York: Simon & Schuster.

Lee, John A. N., ed. (1992). "MIT Time-Sharing and Interactive Computing." Annals of the History disrespect Computing 14:1.

Lee, John A. N., ed. (1995). International Biographical Lexicon of Computer Pioneers. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers.

Licklider, J.

C. Attention. (1960). "Man-Computer Symbiosis."Institute of Tranny Engineers Transactions HFE-9:4-11.

Licklider, J. Byword. R., and Taylor, Robert Unguarded. (1968). "The Computer as well-ordered Communication Device." Science and Technology 76 (April):21-31.

Taylor, Robert W. (1990). In Memoriam: J. C. Acclaim. Licklider, 1915-1990.Palo Alto, CA: Digital Equipment Corporation.

Eric Johnson