[SIGCIS-Members] Firsts... the historiographical "F-Bomb"

[B. Randell]

Hi Bill:

My not-altogether serious scenario is, I agree, unlikely - with the possible exception of Turing-related topics, given the amazing amount of worldwide publicity and activity that was generated for Alan Turing Year! 

Indeed I would suggest that the whole ATY activity is perhaps worthy of a (single) thesis - albeit in sociology :-)

But being serious for the moment, establishing the order in which things happened is often very useful in helping to rule out conjectured cause-effect relationships, e.g. in accident investigations - this happens to be a research topic I'm investigating at present.

Cheers

Brian


On 27 Jun 2014, at 15:05, William Aspray <bill at ischool.utexas.edu>
 wrote:

> I think that Brian's scenario is unlikely for historians because history is about interpretation. Bernard Cohen published a book about Isaac Newton some 50 years ago, but this has not stopped a glut of scholars from continuing to write about Newton. 
> 
> Patents were controversial at the time of the Constitution, and for political and economic reasons they continue to be controversial today, e.g. Business method patents. Being first is an important consideration in patents, but there are many other considerations as well. Patent claims are mediated by documentation both internal to the organization, e.g. Lab notebooks, and also outside, e.g. scholarly publications. They are also mediated by filing a patent claim in a particular legal style.
> 
> In the world of technological products and services, being first can be an advantage but it's often not decisive. Other factors such as supply chains, distribution networks, political clout, better service and maintenance, and protected markets can be much more important.
> 
> Even in pure thought areas first is not always all that it's cracked up to be. In mathematics, for example, the first proof of an unknown fact can often be inelegantly constructed; it might also not recognize all the connections to other mathematical results. There is a long history of these first results being abandoned in favor of the more Elegant ones.
> 
> Computing systems of the 20th and 21st centuries are complex technological systems. One reason why historians find the attention to firsts so insidious is that it concentrates all of the credit on a single individual or laboratory, when in fact most systems are built on The shoulders of many previous ideas and technologies. 
> 
> I'm going to use an analogy that I'm sure my engineering colleagues won't like very much. Some years ago I conducted an oral history with the well-known Japanese businessman Den Fujita. He was proud for having "invented" the teriyaki burger and serving it in his McDonald's restaurants. Clearly both teriyaki style cooking and hamburgers had existed long before this. One might say that Fujita's contribution was one of assembly. Perhaps it would be healthy for historians of early computing systems to think of the creators of early computer systems more as assemblers than as creative geniuses.
> 
> Bill
> 
>> On Jun 27, 2014, at 6:24 AM, "B. Randell" <Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Scott:
>> 
>> And I would guess that if it were discovered that PhD theses had been submitted at roughly the same time in two different universities on essentially the same History of Science topic, with coincidentally very similar content and conclusions, there would be some reason to bring the F-word into play even in the faculty lounge(s)! :-)
>> 
>> Cheers
>> 
>> Brian Randell
>> 
>> 
>> On 27 Jun 2014, at 13:03, Scott Guthery <sbg at acw.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Patents and copyrights are regularly adjudicated on firstness.  'First' would thus seem to be a recognized state of being at least outside of the faculty lounge.
>>> 
>>> Cheers, Scott
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
>> School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU
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>> 
>> 
>> 
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School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU
EMAIL = Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell