Calculating a Natural World: Scientists, Engineers, and Computers during the Rise of U.S. Cold War Research (review)

In recent years, a rich historical literature has emerged relating to early mainframe electronic computers. Calculating a Natural World is a fine addition. Atsushi Akera's book examines important episodes in the history of these objects, particularly those constructed in the United States. Building on previous publications, his own archival research, and social theories relating to technical innovation, Akera recasts earlier stories and frames new ones. The chapter on the ENIAC, for example, presents little-known biographical information about John Mauchly, the man who envisioned a scientific tool that became an electronic computer for military use. The discussion of John von Neumann points up the importance of such matters as social solidarity among émigré mathematicians in establishing his status, neuropsychological metaphors in the early description of a stored-program computer, and professional networking in postwar years that allowed von Neumann to shape not only the design of the IAS computer, but also the architecture of most computers built since then.

Creating computers in the cold war era required mathematical expertise, engineering skills, and administrative talents. Akera's account of computer development at the National Bureau of Standards highlights the importance of Samuel Alexander's work within the structures of that organization in producing the SEAC. Discussing the Whirlwind computer project at MIT, Akera examines the rhetoric employed by Jay W. Forrester, his colleagues, and his federal patrons to justify the spiraling costs of that instrument.

Two chapters consider people selling and using computers built commercially. They analyze the changing professional roles of IBM staff and users as customers struggled to program and operate early IBM computers. The final sections offer an intriguing comparison of the development of computing centers at MIT and at the University of Michigan. The interplay of corporate generosity (IBM gave computers to MIT and rented them to Michigan at a reduced rate), computer center directors, university administrators, faculty, and students is fascinating. The consequences for computer science as a discipline, for such computer programming languages as Fortran IV, for the introduction of computer time-sharing, and for computer use more generally were fundamental.

Akera's stories lead him to group changes within technology (or, to use his terminology, transformative practices) into four broad categories. The first, "syntagmatic extensions," reproduce existing assemblages of knowledge in a new context. Other alterations, "interpretive extensions," modify or extend existing practices. "Recombination" establishes new interconnections between disciplines and institutions. Finally, the needs of a new technology may lead to "dissociation," that is to say the abandonment of prior practices.

Akera offers examples of all these forms of changes. This reader finds it curious to apply his categories—loosely—to changes in computer exhibits at museums. In the mid-1960s, portions of the ENIAC and other mainframe computers were put on display, usually at national museums, within the context of traditional mathematical instruments. Devices like the IAS, the SEAC, and the Whirlwind I soon followed, with greater emphasis on the distinctive nature of these machines and their ability to shape international relations. More recently, emphasis was put on the connections between these objects and other technologies, particularly those used for word processing and communication. Finally, as calculation has become only a small part of computing and as microcomputers have become commonplace, mainframe computers are increasingly in storage. Many of the stories Akera unravels and tells so elegantly have been consigned to academe.

Akera's book will intrigue historians of computing and may provide useful readings in the social study of technology. If and when the publisher elects to put out a paperback edition, a bit of time should be invested to assure the correct spelling of the name of mathematician Felix Klein, consistent parallel structure in sentences, and uniform agreement between subjects and verbs.