Noteworthy accomplishments and creations

©Mark Ollig

Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt lifted off from the moon’s surface Dec. 14, 1972, completing NASA’s final Apollo moon mission.

The adventurous moon missions of the Apollo program are examples of noteworthy accomplishments humans have successfully undertaken.

One notable creation I am grateful for is the telephone.

“Cables of telephone wires could be laid underground, or suspended overhead, communicating by branch wires with private dwellings, country houses, shops, and factories,” Alexander Graham Bell said in March 1878.

Bell continued to describe how telephones would connect by “... uniting them through the main cable with a central office, where the wire could be connected as desired, establishing direct communication between any two places in the city.”

Alexander Graham Bell was granted US patent No. 174,465 in 1876 for the invention of the telephone.

In 1885, 41-year-old German mechanical engineer, Karl (sometimes spelled Carl) Friedrich Benz, designed and built the first automobile as we know it today.

A four-cycle engine powered his automobile.

Jan. 29, 1886, Germany Patent DRP No. 37435, titled “Vehicle with gas engine operation,” was awarded to Benz for the first automobile to use a gasoline-powered, internal-combustion engine.

Of course, automobiles require a reliable and safe thoroughfare system to travel over, which leads to the construction of this nation’s modern highway system, another outstanding and notable accomplishment.

The first attempt to engineer a national roadway system began during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration in 1938, with Congress’ passing of The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1938, for a 26,700-mile network of highways; however, no actual construction began.

In 1944, the US Congress delegated state agencies and the Department of Defense to design highway routes connecting cities to industrial centers.

In 1956, during President Dwight Eisenhower’s administration, the US Congress approved a $25 billion budget to construct a 41,012-mile national interstate highway system. The cost, when adjusted for inflation, would today equal $242 billion.

Currently, the US interstate highway system contains nearly 47,000 miles of roads.

We can fly through the air due to the efforts of the two Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur.

Thursday, Dec. 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, NC, the Wright brother’s flying machine, named “Wright Flyer,” made its first historic flight.

On that Thursday, Orville Wright piloted the four-cylinder engine-powered aircraft, steering the flying machine through the air at a level position.

Orville’s first flight had him maneuvering the Wright Flyer in the sky and performing a controlled landing procedure, returning him and the aircraft safely to the ground.

The plane’s first flight traveled 120 feet and lasted 12 seconds.

Wilbur Wright was at the Wright Flyer controls during its longest flight of the day, which saw it traveling some 825 feet, with the flight lasting nearly one minute.

I have done my share of dishwashing by hand and have come to appreciate one of my favorite household appliances: the dishwasher.

Credit for the modern-day dishwasher goes to Josephine Garis Cochran, a reportedly wealthy socialite.

During the late 1800s, Cochran had become impatient with having her fine china sometimes broken by her servants while being thoroughly cleaned and washed by hand.

She became determined to find a process for having her fragile dishes washed faster and without being broken.

“If nobody else is going to invent a dish washing machine, I’ll do it myself!” Cochran determinedly said.

And, she did.

Cochran designed and created a dishwashing machine with special compartments described in her US Patent as “racks or cages” to place the cups, plates, and saucers.

Her dishwashing machine also included a knife and fork rack and one for “glass and other hollow items.”

Cochran’s dishwashing machine used a copper water boiler and a motor turning a wheel that sprayed hot, soapy water out of water-jet pipes from the dishwasher’s bottom. After a brief period, an above-water source would shower down onto the dishes – cleaning them.

Josephine Garis Cochran was issued US Patent No. 355,139 on Dec. 28, 1886.

In 1893, Cochran demonstrated the world’s first modern dishwasher at the Chicago World’s Fair.

She formed the Garis-Cochran Dish-Washing Company, which manufactured and marketed her dishwashing machines to hotels and large restaurants.

Dec 28, 1886, US Patent No. 355,139 was awarded to Josephine Garis Cochran. You can see it at https://bit.ly/2ONnHPH.

In 1949, the Garis-Cochran Dish-Washing Company became part of KitchenAid. The Whirlpool Corporation purchased this company in 1986.

In 1977, electronics engineer and computer programmer Steve Wozniak introduced the world to the Apple II personal computer.

The US Patent Office issued Patent No. 4,136,359, titled Microcomputer for Use with Video Display, to Stephen G. Wozniak Jan. 23, 1979. You can see his patent at https://bit.ly/3cUJAV3.

Today’s column highlighted just some of the many noteworthy accomplishments and creations.

Apollo 11 left these messages in the Sea of Tranquility

©Mark Ollig

When Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin blasted off from the moon July 21, 1969, they left behind more than just footprints.

Before the astronauts ended their lunar surface extravehicular activity, Mission Control in Houston, TX radioed them.

Mission Control: “Will you verify that the disc with messages was placed on the surface as planned. Over.”

Lunar module pilot Aldrin unzipped his sleeve pocket and removed a silicon disc slightly larger than a one-half-dollar coin.

He carefully placed the disc on the moon’s surface.

“That’s verified,” Aldrin reported back to Mission Control.

He and Armstrong then climbed up the lunar module ladder and into the ascent stage crew cabin named Eagle.

The disc containing statements by four US presidents and messages of goodwill from the leaders of 73 countries now rests on the moon.

Each original message was reduced 200 times in size before being etched onto the disc’s surface.

According to NASA, the reduced-sized image was then transferred to glass and used as a “mask through which ultraviolet light was beamed onto a photo-sensitive film on the silicon disc.”

NASA made the moon disc from silicon because of its ability to withstand the lunar surface’s extraordinarily high and low temperatures, which can range from 260 degrees Fahrenheit to minus-280 degrees Fahrenheit.

Silicon, a chemical element, is a complex crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster.

Because of its purity and stability, silicon was used in 1969 to produce miniature integrated circuits.

The same technology was used 30 years earlier with silicon during World War II to produce electronic diode components.

The moon disc manufactured 52 years ago was considered a highly technological undertaking for 1969.

Sprague Electric Company’s semi-conductor division, located in Worcester, MA, created the moon disc with NASA’s electronics research center’s assistance.

I searched the NASA website for information about the disc and found their copy of a July 11, 1969 document titled “Release No: 69-83F Apollo 11 Goodwill Messages.”

“A small disc carrying statements by presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon and messages of goodwill from leaders of 73 countries around the world will be left on the Moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts,” stated the first page of the document.

The top of the disc reads, “Goodwill messages from around the world brought to the Moon by the astronauts of Apollo 11.”

The following are some of the goodwill messages etched onto the silicon disc still resting on the surface of the moon, near the Apollo 11 Lunar Module descent stage:

“Man has reached out and touched the tranquil moon. May that high accomplishment allow man to rediscover the Earth and find peace,” Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada.

“It is our sincere desire that the astronauts, upon the date of their landing on the moon, will have made a significant contribution to a world utopia and peace through the universe,” Chaing Kai-Shek, president, Republic of China.

“From the President of Israel in Jerusalem with the hope of ‘abundance of peace so long as the Moon endureth’ (Psalms 72:7),” Zalman Shazar, president of Israel.

“On this unique occasion when man traverses outer space to set foot on Earth’s nearest neighbor, Moon, I send my greetings and good wishes to the brave astronauts who have launched on this great venture. I fervently hope that this event will usher in an era of peaceful endeavor for all mankind,” Indira Gandhi, India’s prime minister.

“To the glory of the name of God who gives such power to men, we ardently pray for this wonderful beginning,” Pope Paul VI of the Vatican.

President John F. Kennedy made the following statement May 25, 1961, which NASA imprinted on the moon disc, “We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share. I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project will be more exciting, or more impressive to mankind, or more important, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”

NASA said each message appears on the silicon disc as a dot, barely visible to the naked eye.

Read the 73 goodwill messages written on the moon disc here: https://go.nasa.gov/30LdNjR.

Suppose beings from a future millennium come across this disc while performing an archaeology dig on Apollo 11’s landing site; they will need to use a microscope (or what is available thousands, if not millions of years from now) to read the messages.

We can only imagine how John F. Kennedy would have reacted to the moon landing if he had been alive to see his challenge to the nation accomplished.

In October 2024, NASA will return to the moon by sending Artemis III, and history will be made once again, as the first woman to walk on the lunar surface will occur.

Stay tuned.

The moon disc is a little larger than a half-dollar

Preserving historical audio recordings

The Mundaneum’s version of Google

© Mark Ollig

In 1934, Belgian Paul Otlet (pronounced ot-LAY) wrote how information could be attained over a global network using “electric telescopes.”

He envisioned people having the means to search and browse through millions of interlinked images, documents, video, and audio files.

Otlet called it a “réseau,” a French word meaning network.

He described a networked world where “anyone in his armchair would be able to contemplate the whole of creation.”

Today, Otlet’s vision turned into a reality, as anyone sitting in their armchair can contemplate the whole of creation.

Paul Otlet’s pursuit of connecting people to the world’s knowledge started in 1895 when he met fellow Belgian Henri La Fontaine.

La Fontaine shared in Otlet’s vision of developing one primary bibliography center containing the entire world’s published knowledge. They held many discussions on the subject.

Otlet persuaded the Federal Government of Belgium to support their project and provide a building for their collection and business operations.

The building space became called the Mundaneum pronounced (mun-da-NAY-um), which comes from the French word mondain, meaning “worldly” in French.

Otlet then set out and began to stockpile the published photographs, articles, statistics, and other data from every printed book, newspaper, magazine, illustration, poster, and pamphlet.

Paul Otlet undertook quite a challenge.

Starting with 3-by-5 index cards to organize the Mundaneum’s growing collection of printed knowledge, he went on to create an enormous paper database called a “universal catalog of all that had been written.”

This universal catalog grew to contain more than 17 million entries.

Thousands of index cards inside wooden cardholder drawers lined the inner walls of the Mundaneum.

In 1904, Otlet implemented a new Universal Decimal Classification procedure to organize, categorize, and cross-reference the massive amount of paper documentation and manage the escalating information overload.

He also hired library catalogers to help with organizing the Universal Bibliographical System index cards.

By 1910, Otlet established a fee-based research service whereby anyone in the world could submit a question to the Mundaneum via postal mail or telegraph.

People from all over the world contacted the Mundaneum, submitting requests to research specific subjects.

As the Mundaneum operations grew, the building began to be overwhelmed by the massive amounts of paper documentation being collected and stored.

At the start of the 1920s, Otlet visualized removing the physical need for housing such a massive amount of paper altogether.

Documentation was not stored electronically during the 1920s, and so Otlet began to study this method.

By 1934, Otlet’s research led to his publishing a book called “Monde,” meaning “world” in French.

His book describes electronic data storage as a “mechanical collective brain” containing a universal catalog of all the world’s information.

He says this information is accessible anytime, from anyplace using a worldwide telecommunications network – remember folks, this is 87 years ago.

His book’s terms included “web of knowledge,” “link,” and “knowledge network” in describing a central repository containing all human knowledge.

Otlet believed creating an efficient method to organize and distribute knowledge would make a better world.

Just when the Mundaneum had become a global documentation center, the Belgian government withdrew its support, forcing Otlet to move out of the building.

Due to financial difficulties, Otlet had to relocate the Mundaneum to a much smaller building and employ fewer people.

Otlet’s Mundaneum operations came to an end when the German Nazi army marched through Belgium in 1940, a year after World War II began.

Sadly, the German army demolished the Mundaneum building’s interior.

They removed and destroyed paper documents and thousands of boxes filled with Otlet’s 3-by-5 index cards.

Art from Nazi Germany’s Third Reich filled the Mundaneum.

Paul Otlet, called the “father of information management,” died Dec. 10, 1944, at 76.

How would Paul Otlet respond to today’s internet and instantaneous global access to the growing amount of information?

“Otlet would be rejoicing at the creation of the internet and the web, although he would be terribly upset about the lack of organization on it,” said 1975 Paul Otlet biographer W. Boyd Rayward.

Today in Paul Otlet’s hometown of Mons, Belgium, stands the non-profit Mundaneum museum.

The museum’s inner walls hold some of Otlet’s original index cards inside the small wooden drawers. There is also an ever-growing paper knowledge depository which includes a collection of Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine’s papers.

The museum curators continue to locate and return lost documents and artifacts removed from the original Mundaneum.

Nowadays, many of us begin our search for information using Google; however, let us not forget Paul Otlet and his Mundaneum used to collect, store, and share the world’s published knowledge.

A 1998 video biography of Paul Otlet with English narrations by W. Boyd Rayward is at http://www.archive.org/details/paulotlet.

Paul Otlet in his Mundaneum