1910: Principia Mathematica
Whitehead and Russell attempt to present mathematics formalized in terms of logic.
1910: Mundaneum
Collecting the world's knowledge on index cards
Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine collected twelve million index cards of information, planning to create a world center for answering factual questions.
1936: Alan Turing
The concept of universal computation
Turing shows that any reasonable computation can be done by programming a fixed universal machine—and then speculated that such a machine could emulate the brain.
1936: Social Security Administration
The concept of universal computation
Under FDR's New Deal Social Security program, the first Social Security numbers are issued.
1950: Jules Charney and John von Neumann
Computing the weather
The first serious weather simulation is run on the ENIAC computer.
1950s: Computational Linguistics
Computing the weather
Computational linguistics puts the concepts of grammar into an algorithmic form that promises to automate processes of language understanding.
1950—1960s: Artificial Intelligence
Making computers intelligent
Artificial Intelligence defines a research program for developing computers that show general intelligence which leads to many spinoffs important for specific purposes.
1950—1960s: Pop-Culture Computers
Making computers intelligent
From the Tracy and Hepburn movie Desk Set to TV's Batman and Star Trek to HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey and the robots of Isaac Asimov, the public becomes used to the idea that computers will eventually have human-like knowledge and reasoning.
1957: Arthur RosenfeldOrganizing the elementary particles
Arthur Rosenfeld assembles a table of all known elementary particles.
1957: Computer LanguagesOrganizing the elementary particles
Fortran, COBOL, and other early computer languages defines the concept of a precise formal representation for tasks to be performed by computers.
NPL in the UK and NBS in the US are founded to make measurements and standards using methods from physics.
Volunteers contribute abstracts to the first issue of Chemical Abstracts published in the US; this system is in place through the 1960s.
The Pure Food and Drug Act effectively founds the US Food & Drug Administration.
Whitehead and Russell attempt to present mathematics formalized in terms of logic.
The Al Munro Elias Bureau starts producing scorecards and statistics on baseball.
Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine collected twelve million index cards of information, planning to create a world center for answering factual questions.
CRC publishes the first edition of the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.
Frank and Lillian ("Cheaper by the Dozen") Gilbreth introduce flow charts as a way to represent processes.
Ronald Fisher and others lay the foundations for modern statistics.
Turing shows that any reasonable computation can be done by programming a fixed universal machine—and then speculated that such a machine could emulate the brain.
The International Commission on Illumination (CIE) introduces XYZ perceptual color space.
Under FDR's New Deal Social Security program, the first Social Security numbers are issued.
The AC Nielsen Company creates a "retail index" for tracking the flow of food and drug purchases.
George Gallup founds the American Institute of Public Opinion and begins collecting opinion polls.
The USGS begins collecting aerial photos of the US.
Alonzo Church introduces lambda calculus as an algebra-style notations for computations.
Bush speculates on the idea of a "memex" device that will provide computerized access to the world's knowledge.
The arrival of digital electronic computers provides the mechanism by which computations of all kinds can be automated with increasing efficiency.
Malcolm Dyson invents the IUPAC system for naming chemicals.
Chester Carlson patents the photocopier, and in 1949 the "Xerox Model A" photocopier begins production.
The Minor Planet Center is founded to collect all reports of new asteroids and comets.
The first serious weather simulation is run on the ENIAC computer.
Computational linguistics puts the concepts of grammar into an algorithmic form that promises to automate processes of language understanding.
The SI (metre, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, candela) system of units is defined.
Artificial Intelligence defines a research program for developing computers that show general intelligence which leads to many spinoffs important for specific purposes.
Arthur Rosenfeld assembles a table of all known elementary particles.
From the Tracy and Hepburn movie Desk Set to TV's Batman and Star Trek to HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey and the robots of Isaac Asimov, the public becomes used to the idea that computers will eventually have human-like knowledge and reasoning.
Fortran, COBOL, and other early computer languages defines the concept of a precise formal representation for tasks to be performed by computers.
James Watson and Francis Crick discover that DNA contains a digital genetic code.
This art-quality 4'10" x 16" poster timeline of the History of Systematic Data and the Development of Computable Knowledge includes nearly 200 entries spanning millennia of events that have shaped the modern world of data and knowledge. Presented in its original version at the 2010 Wolfram Data Summit, this fascinating and impressive large-scale poster is the perfect piece of intellectual art for your library, office, or other wall, and is a unique gift for any enthusiast of data, technology, and its history.
