1956 something dramatically happened. all the sudden you didn't need to rewind 731,52 meter of magnetic tape any longer to get from w to a. 1956 was the year ibm 305 ramac got introduced ...

gene franklin (audio/mpeg, 402 KB) told the story a while ago.

the lowest and flattest of these curves is that of population growth at a world mean of about 1.8 percent per annum ... . the second curve represents the mean growth rate (7.5 percent) of gross national products in the developed nations of the world and of telephones in the united states.

there are two other growth trends that are distinctly steeper that the normal and sober 7.5 percent. the first of these is the expansion of long-distance communications, in particular transatlantic traffic, at a rate of 15 percent per year, or a quadrupling every 10 years. the steepest curve, which represents the computation and data-automation field, is in the phenomenal or "boy wonder" class and represents a growth rate of the order of 15 to 25 percent per year, or a tenfold increase every 10 years. this is our cybernetic revolution. | j.w. halina, data transmission - current trends and future prospects, 1963

nicenicenice materials collected by jeffrey kegler, who got hold of a document written by morgenstern that proofs at least that gödel found a kind of contradiction in the us constitution, yet nobody knows what it was. there are a lot of schnurren in morgenstern's memo about gödel as well as einstein.

morgenstern recalls a scene in with einstein was asked for an "authograph".

i turned to einstein and said: "it must be dreadful to be persecuted in this fashion by so many people." einstein said to me: you know, that is just the last remnant of cannibalism." i was puzzled and said, "how is that?" he said: "yes, formerly they wanted your blood, now they want your ink." | oskar morgenstern, history of the naturalization of kurt gödel