Reflection on "As we may Think" by Vannebar Bush

Upon having read “As we may Think” by Vannebar Bush, I cant help but feel that Bush would be both surprised and amazed by the internet of our modern culture. There is no doubt about the fact that major similarities can drawn between his described Machine of the future and the technology that we have access to at the tips of our fingers.

Bush talks about the advantages of being able to share information and knowledge with other researchers and yet a mere 75 years after Bush shared his vision and dream almost 80% of the entire human population has access to the great wealth that is all human knowledge with just a few keystrokes. Not only is this technology available to the academics and researchers of the world but rather to the common man. Any person with an active internet connection can have the answer to any question in a few moments, and moreover they are able to share their knowledge and experiences with the rest of the world.

In his work Bush describes a trail of information that can be added to, amended by and increased by 1 person to another. This great trail of information exists today and resides at the web address of Wikipedia.com. Never before has there been such a large collection of information available to almost every person on the planet. One can only think of the possibilities that will emerge in the next 75 years as a result of this great shared knowledge, and I for one am excited to see where this river of information leads us.