Lee, Bush, and Wiener’s Thoughts on Networks and Computers

Abstract

Wiener’s work on the Heaviside operational calculus (§ 9B), undertaken at the behest of his engineering friends, was mathematical and did not represent his more tangible engineering predilections and flair for things electrical. The latter showed themselves, however, in his excitement over the computer building program at MIT from the mid-1920s to the 1940s, executed under the leadership of Dr. Vannevar Bush. This had three basic targets: (1) a network analyzer for solving systems of algebraic equations that appear in power engineering, (2) an intergraph for the evaluation of integrals depending on a parameter t, e.g.

$$\int_a^t f \left( x \right)g\left( x \right)dx\;or\;\int_o^a {f\left( {t - x} \right)g\left( x \right)} dx$$

, and (3) a differential analyser for solving ordinary differential equations.