[SIGCIS-Members] petroleum and computers
Allan Olley
allan.olley at utoronto.ca
Wed Sep 15 18:40:27 PDT 2010
I know of one incident from the fuzzy origin period of computers circa
1948-1952, two different oil companies, Carter oil and Gulf Research and
Development Co., submitted similar problems in oil exploitation (if I remember
right optimization problems on how best to get oil out of wells) to IBM's
Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC, a sort of proto-computers). In
particular Carter Oil (which apparently was a subsiduary of Exxon) hired von
Neumann as a consultant.
As far as I've been able to find the SSEC was actually used for about
23 projects (another dozen were considered with some preliminary work done). Of
these about half were done gratis for various research scientists, the other
half were done on a cost basis for various paying clients, mostly scientists
and engineers at US federal government (military) agencies. Of the 5 payed for
by private companies, one was GE's turbine design, one was Fairchild Aircraft's
atomic airplane division, one was by Reeves Instrument company to calibrate a
missile guidance system, and then the two oil problems.
This is not really a statistical significant sample and the SSEC was
biased sampling because it was a philanthropic show piece ostensively meant for
the benefit of scientists.
Still oil companies were clearly early adopters and had problems that
needed computing power but I've always been led to believe that in the earliest
days of the electronic computer government was the biggest user of computing
resources (electronic or otherwise), in the United States. And even many of the
private interests were firms working on defense projects or other government
contracts (military aircraft etc.).
This oral interview (
http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Oral-History:Enders_Robinson ) with
Enders Robinson suggests that the use of computers in the geophysics of oil
exploration did not occur until the 1960s, but that they were widely used at
refineries earlier.
On von Neumann and Carter Oil see: Aspray, _John von Neumann and the Origins of
Modern Computing_ (1990), pp. 105-108
Here is a paper on oil extraction that credits with von Neumann with some help
(talks about moving some stuff from desktop calculators to a card programmed
calculator):
http://www.aimehq.org/search/docs/Volume%20207/207-31.pdf
My estimate of SSEC usage is based mostly on an unpublished manuscript
(substantiated from the published record and elsewhere where possible),
"Appendix B: SSEC Operation" (no date) in "SSEC, the first electronic computer"
by A. W. Brooke, pp. B1-B12. A. Wayne Brooke Collection, University North
Carolina at Raleigh, special collections, MC#268, Box 1, Folder #9: Series 2.3
writings. A. W. Brooke was the supervising engineer of the SSEC during its
operation 1948-1952 and apparently found the summary of SSEC operation in IBM
archives.
--
Yours Truly,
Allan Olley
http://individual.utoronto.ca/fofound/
On Mon, 13 Sep 2010, Deborah Douglas wrote:
> Colleagues,
>
> Recently, I received a question about a claim that the petroleum-seeking
> geophysics industry was once the greatest consumer of computers, only
> surpassed at some later point by the federal government. No citation was
> given and there is quite a bit of skepticism but where would you advise us to
> look to refute this claim (or perhaps my own aerospace bias is too strong and
> the claim is true!).
>
> Thanks,
>
> Debbie Douglas
>
>
> Deborah G. Douglas, Ph.D.
> Curator of Science and Technology
> MIT Museum, N51-209
> 265 Massachusetts Avenue
> Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
> ddouglas at mit.edu • 617-253-1766 phone • 617-253-8994 fax
> http://web.mit.edu/museum • http://webmuseum.mit.edu •
> http://museum.mit.edu/150
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of
> SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/
> and you can change your subscription options at
> http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
More information about the Members
mailing list