Herman Hollerith (German Hollerith)

(29.02.1860 - 17.11.1929)
. Who and why built the Ai-Bi-EmN
. A brief biography of Herman Hollerith
. - Tell me, my dear Watson, how many sheep grazing on the green lawn, past which now drives our fast train, the London-BirmingemN
. - But this is impossible, Holmes!
. - This is trivial, Watson, we must only count the number of legs of these lovely animals and divided that number by 4
.
By the end of the eighteenth century, humanity seemed to have counted all the stars in the sky and devote themselves entirely to engage in no less exciting - counting livestock homo sapiens. Numerous expeditions and missions scattered throughout the Old and New World in order to recalculate the herd of men, regardless of color, creed and social status. Work that was akin to Sisyphus. Bookkeepers, . accustomed to the unidirectional incremental scenarios in the calculation of the stars (because their number never decreases), . in the calculation of human beings faced with the need to take into account bilateral consequences of population explosion, . caused by endless wars, . morami, . lack of contraception and other attributes of civilization is far from perfect.,
. America set the tone world demographic process
. Americans fought for independence. As the resolution of political disputes population of the North American continent has faded considerably. Led to power the first U.S. president, George Washington, the next step after the adoption of the Constitution, in 1790 attempted to calculate the surviving voters. But while government officials are faced with incredible difficulties, had spent huge amounts of money at extremely low efficiency and questionable accuracy of calculations. However, the whole procedure took relatively little time - 9 months after the start of the report, containing 3.8 million entries, was presented to the President. Only a century later, was able to do a full and extremely accurate census of the entire population of America. And this was made possible by Herman Hollerith card-tabs, which are now few people remember ...
Herman's parents were from Germany, in 1848 they left their homeland to escape from the nightmare, which reigned in the country thanks to the efforts of the revolutionary masses. Twelve long years it took them to build a house in Buffalo, find decent work and the production of a son. The boy turned to the glory and the very date of birth - February 29, 1860 - promised him life, rich uncommon events. On infant years Herman did not know (family business). In school, he walked with evident reluctance, and had a reputation among teachers, gifted child, but ill-mannered and lazy. Not give him any grammar or calligraphy, not lead him to delight or national history, nor the works of the founders of the young democratic state. Fared much better with the natural and exact sciences. In addition, youth with pleasure, and not without talent drew. Problems with study attributable to the fact that Herman suffered a fairly common disease - dysgraphia and experienced serious difficulties with the need to record anything from the hand. Dysgraphia at different times marred the lives of many wonderful people, among them, the famous physicist Lev Davidovich Landau, a famous Hollywood actor Tom Cruise and many others. Perhaps it was this defect and has provoked the interest of Herman to the machines and mechanisms to effectively substitute for manual labor.
Meanwhile, teachers of our hero was not the case to the medical side of the issue. "The strokes must be popendikulyarny!" And once, . after repeated rewriting the same page of text on the orders of Assertive Pestalozzi (for generating the elegant and legible handwriting), . Herman once and left the walls of the municipal secondary school, . carefully closing the front door,
. He was then 14 years. During the year the only teacher Herman was a Lutheran priest, not only rehearsed with the psalms, but also prepared him for admission to the prestigious New York City College. Over the next four years the young man graduated with honors from the signified higher education institution and joined the Columbia University, Department of Mathematics at the famous Professor Trowbridge. Soon after his employer called to lead the National Bureau of Census U.S., focusing, inter alia, the collection and statistical processing of information in the census States. Trowbridge asked for a Hollerith. The new appointment was very attractive, as promised work to solve computational grand challenges of the upcoming next census of American citizens in 1880.
But the work among the scribes did not bring any joy to Herman. Only one species of scarabs, always chirping feathers, casts him habitual longing. Sticks, . hooks, . Sticks, . hooks: Every ten years, . according to the established rule once, . State scribblers of all countries started regular census of citizens, . that every time dragged on for many years and gave the result very far from reality,
. Among other things, requirements for the information provided from year to year grew. Now it was not enough to say that in New York City live 100 thousand inhabitants. Statistics was necessary to ascertain that 85% of them speak in English, 55% - women, 35% - Catholics, 5% - the indigenous Indians, and 0,05% - remember the first president of the USA.
It was then that the idea of mechanization of labor enumerators, using machines similar jacquard loom. In fact, the very first time this idea was expressed by Dr. Hollerith natural counterpart John Shaw. Alas, the idea and hung in the air, not materialized in the iron. Of course, at that time to the whole of progressive mankind has known the amazing computer Englishman Charles Babbage, but it existed in single copy and did not find any practical application. Ambitious Herman were harassing the prospects that would open before the creator of this type of counting machine, whether it is placed in the public service. He sincerely believed that the Americans could be persuaded to the prospects of using counting devices, the more that one practical application - a census of citizens - was there. And besides, so wanted to make her choke blotter all these mediocrities who ever shpynyali him so that he could not really bring even his signature.
In 1882, Hollerith began teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Applied Mechanics, University of Technology. At the service he had come by train. One day, when the inventor, weary thoughts of his mechanical creation, peacefully asleep, his rest disturbed Comptroller. Hollerith automatically gave him a travel card, the controller with a melancholy air repeatedly pierced her and returned to the owner. Owner still for a moment, puzzled look on hopelessly spoiled by a piece of cardboard, then giggled, and with an idiotic grin on his lips he reached the destination station. Soon came out of the car, he skipped domchalsya to the door of the laboratory and locked the door for a few days
. We terminate our story for the sake of very curious information: American conductors in those years have invented a highly original way to combat fraud and theft of railway tickets, . which (in order to save money), there was no serial numbers, . nor the names of owners,
. The inspection did punch a hole in the conventional field on the ticket, thus marking the floor, hair and eye color passenger. The result of this kind of card, to some extent helps identify the true owner of the ticket. But back to our hero ...
Soon after he settled in the laboratory clumsy monster, collected mainly from scrap metal found on luxury university bins. Some details had to order from Europe. It is noteworthy that in its first incarnation counting machine Hollerith used the perforated tape. Ribbon slipped on the isolated metal table top she crouched on a metal strip with the same number are not rigid and rounded stochennyh nails. In the case of hitting the nail in the hole on the tape recorded the closure of the electrical contact, an electrical pulse drives the counting mechanism. So primitive, but very effectively implement information reading. But soon Hollerith was disappointed in the tape, because it quickly became worn and tearing, in addition, quite often because of the high speed tape did not manage to read information. Therefore, in the end, under pressure from his mother in-law, John Billings, as the media Hollerith punch cards were elected. One hundred years later, computer scientists once thought the idea of reading information from the tape more promising. But this, as they say, is another story.
Inventive activity is so captured Hollerith that this could not affect the quality of its teaching. In addition, he did not like to stand out in front of students and did everything to avoid the need to crawl in chalk on a blackboard. Therefore, when in 1884 he was offered a senior officer in the National Patent Office, he did not hesitate. A few months Hollerith designed the patent in his name on his card-created tabulator. The machine was tested in the statistical offices in New York, New Jersey and Baltimore. The authorities were satisfied and recommended that the invention Hollerith on competition among the systems considered by the U.S. government as the base for the mechanization of labor enumerators during the forthcoming census in 1890. Hollerith Machine found no equal, and therefore it was hastily organized by the creation of industrial design, card-Tab in the design office of Pratt and Whitney (built later famous aircraft engine). Production was entrusted with the Western Electric Company. And in June 1890 began the first in the history of "mechanized" census. Results in the year in the United States were recorded 62,622,250 people, the whole procedure of processing the results took less than three months, saving 5 million budget (the entire state budget of the U.S. that year was calculated only in tens of millions of dollars). For comparison, the population census in 1880 took seven years. In addition to the speed of the new system made it possible to compare statistical data on various parameters. Thus, for example, were first obtained actual operational data on infant mortality in different states.
Began stellar period in the life of Hollerith. He was unprecedented at the time a fee of ten thousand dollars, . he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Natural, . his system have adopted (paying a lot of money for the right to use the patent) Canadians, . Norwegians, . Austrians, . and later the British,
. Franklin Institute awarded him the prestigious Elliot Cresson Medal. The French gave him a gold medal at the Paris Exposition in 1893. Almost all the scientific societies of Europe and America, recorded in his "honorary member". Later historians of science of the world call him "the world's first statistical engineer". In 1896 vydoennye of a well-deserved fame means Herman Hollerith invested without a trace in the creation of Tabulating Machine Company (TMC). By this time, calculating machines have improved significantly: automated procedures for filing and sorting punched cards. In 1900, the State Department again endorsed a system of TMC as a base for the "anniversary" census. Although his patent Hollerith and sought the unprecedented amount of $ 1 million. All the money he intended to use for production.
But there were officials who were accused Hollerith in the money-grubbing, endangering the public interests of America. It was decided to build a new state system of population census using technology TMC, however, bypassing patents Hollerith. And immediately after the next census in 1911, managed to create their own Pauers Powers Tabulating Machine Company (PTMC) - a direct competitor TMC. Until now, experts argue about the sources of funding of this "start-apa". The new company soon went bankrupt, but TMC has failed to recover after the loss of state order.
In 1911, very far from science businessman Charles Flint created the Computer Tabulating Recording Company (CTRC), in which the part came in and badly battered company Hollerith. Former Director of TMC was transferred to the post of technical advisor. Alas, the new company also did not thrive. CTRC has risen only in 1920, a year before the dismissal Hollerith, through skillful actions of the new director of Thomas Watson. In 1924, Watson renamed the CTRC in the now famous IBM (International Machines Corporation). Therefore, it is considered to be his father-founder of IBM.
Five years later, business manager IBM signed a paper on the allocation of the necessary amount of the funeral ritual farewell to the body of colleagues, Mr. Herman Hollerith. In addition, the document was signed cease the payment of monthly pension and zero cost to pay material claims by relatives, in the absence of the add -. (Rods, hooks, rods, hooks,:) At the funeral, attended by members of the board of directors of IBM and a few others. The austere young man was holding a velvet pillow with gold, silver and bronze medals. This pillow and numerous patents (number more than 30) to the Hollerith can be seen today in the Museum of fame IBM.
You can meet there and yellowed photos of brothers Harlow and Willard Bundy, founder of International Time Recording, developed the first apparatus for the fixation time arrival and departure of staff (so hated by all). The expensive gilded frames adorn traders Edward Kenbi and Orange Ozias, . once bought up a lot of domestic patents for grinders, . Bread slicers, . grinder and other happy homemakers and thus creating a company with a strange name Computing Scale of America,
. All of them, one way or another, have been implicated in the appearance of abbreviations IBM. You can find in the museum and the personal belongings of the first Director of CTRC, John Patterson, who narrowly failed to bring his company to ruin, and if not for the arrival of Watson ...
. But this very brief story was devoted to Herman Hollerith, the first statistical engineer, who liked not to sign documents
. He has not got any shares of IBM, although it was his tabulyatsionnye car brought as a result of fabulous dividends to shareholders happy.