Vannevar Bush Quotes

“The pioneer spirit is still vigorous within this nation. Science offers a largely unexplored hinterland for the pioneer who has the tools for his task.”

“As long as scientists are free to pursue the truth wherever it may lead, there will be a flow of new scientific knowledge to those who can apply it to practical problems.”

“A mathematician is not a man who can readily manipulate figures; often he cannot. He is not even a man who can readily perform the transformations of equations by the use of calculus. He is primarily an individual who is skilled in the use of symbolic logic on a high plane, and especially he is a man of intuitive judgment in the choice of the manipulative processes he employs.”

“Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and to coin one at random, memex will do.”

“Every time one combines and records facts in accordance with established logical processes, the creative aspect of thinking is concerned only with the selection of the data and the process to be employed, and the manipulation thereafter is repetitive in nature and hence a fit matter to be relegated to the machines.”

“If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world.”

“I made no technical contribution to the war effort. Not a single idea of mine ever amounted to shucks. At times, I have been called an "atomic scientist." It would be fully as accurate to call me a child psychologist.”

“There is a growing mountain of research. But there is increased evidence that we are being bogged down today as specialization extends. The investigator is staggered by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers — conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember, as they appear.”

“The Oppenheimer affair certainly highlighted the gulf between him and the national-security elite.”

“The individual, to me, is everything. I would restrict him as little as possible.”

“The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships.”

“We may be engaged in a race toward realization; but, if so, I have no indication of the status of the enemy program, and have taken no definite steps toward finding out.”

“No American has had greater influence in the growth of science and technology than Vannevar Bush. The 20th century may not yet produce his equal.”

“An inventor invents because he cannot help it, and also because he gets quiet fun out of doing so. Sometimes he even makes money at it, but not by himself. One has to be an inventor to understand this.”