Computers and the _New History_

Sep 27 02:25 UTC 1993

        As more and more information is engraved into the magnetic
medium it can be accessed, read, indexed, searched, cross-referenced,
and eventually automatically translated into any human language.
Could this armchair access change history as we know it?  With more
information being referenced by more people, will we learn more about
history?  Are there events which are thought to be untrue which will
turn out to have merit or will new facts be learned and old facts
be altered?  Might we just rewrite history so it's convenient since
XXXXX as they did in _19840
_ or in the former _Soviet Union_ since everyone will have one
source of information?

response 2 of 22:

Sep 27 04:15 UTC 1993

People will still twist the truth and distort lies.  Historians will
still interpret.  Perhaps this new technology makes it easier and faster
to do so? 

response 4 of 22:

Sep 28 20:03 UTC 1993

If people do not share a common sample of history, aka a common
culture or cultural reference, society will be too fragmented to
survive.  Any society will only function as long as people agree
on acceptable behavior. 

response 6 of 22:

Sep 29 04:19 UTC 1993

There are differences between history and culture. Are current historical
paradigm about George Washington consists of Cherry Tree, Potomac, White
Horse, Father of Country, Wood Teeth, Farwell Address. If a lot of
people never learn those, but learn more relevant facts such as his
views, his personality, his concept of democracy, etc, we will have a
large variety of historical perspectives of the same person. However, I
am inclined to think that, in this case, our culture is strengthened,
rather than weakened. "Acceptable behavior" is not itself history, but
belief systems built upon history (and lots of other things). I would
agree that it is better to have an agreement upon a range of
acceptable behavior - than to have an agreement upon myths about Washington.

response 8 of 22:

Oct 16 21:43 UTC 1993

#6      In your view, are myths about Washington history or culture?

response 10 of 22:

Jan 14 14:14 UTC 1995

Over in coop we are discussing what to do with the files of one who has died.
If all info in places like this are "reaped," then we may be left with only
the interpretations of history which have been published.  How will
historians of the future root out their own interpretations when much
of the original sourses have been deleted.

Another question is, will the information being placed on magnetic media
be able to survive physically?  Baked clay lasts thousands of years, paper
has been found to deteriorate (especially the acidic modern kind), and 
now magnetic media is being found to be even less durable.

Seems like there are only a couple of peoople here who don't frequent coop,
so what are we going to do to help preserve remnants of our history?

response 12 of 22:

Jan 14 19:15 UTC 1995

Almost all original sources have been deleted for practically everything
throughout history. Consider the totality of all communications between
all peoples in, say, ancient Greece. What fraction of that do we have?
Practically none. What is preserved is scraps, usually cut into some
endurable medium by the very rich, and stored in relatively protected
places. A few written histories have come down to us - what fraction of
the total? Close to zero. We are preserving vastly more today than at any
time in history, in more durable form than ever used before.  Some might
consider that unfortunate. Eventually, humans could reach the point that
they have to spend 70 years reading the past, before they can act in the
present....sounds like a prescription for extinction. In regard to
electronic media - I think they will become more durable as the technology
progresses. Magnetic media could be more sensitive so only remnant
magnetism is needed, and the mechanical forms (CD-ROM for a start) will
probably replace magnetism for long term storage (you can already have
your files put on CD-ROM). I'm more worried about *too much* on file,
rather than too little. 

response 14 of 22:

Jan 15 18:57 UTC 1995

Re 12:  There's nothing wrong with a oversized record of the past.  It
just changes the skills needed to interpret the past.  The records will
always have some bias, and be clouded by issues of perspective.  As the
ability to conveniently store information increases, the ability to search,
compile and reference the material must also increase. There are already
many lifetimes worth reading of scientific information available for you to
consider. That doesn't cause any prospect for the extinction of science.


Re 10:  The problem of electronic "history" is an issue at the U of M. 
The Bentley Library is largely responsible for collecting material
related to the history of the university.  Mediums, access, & durability
are all concerns now; not just for extending the scope of information, but
for replacing what has been commonly retained. 

  I think this progression has always occurred.  "Recently" the introduction
of the telephone as a common tool for communication significantly changed
the character of information exchanged and stored.  Historians will always
work with tiny samples.  They're still better off than the guessing gods of
archaeology.

response 16 of 22:

Jan 17 03:51 UTC 1995

That *is* a good idea!

response 18 of 22:

Apr 6 02:37 UTC 1995

Because that's the figure I've heard.  Nobody really knows (obviously)
but it's possible to make some educated guesses based on accellerated
aging tests, and our general knowledge of the physical sciences.

There is now enough of an investment in CD technology world-wide that,
even if some infinitely superior technology appeared tomorrow, it would
be safe to assume CD's would still be dominant for some time to come.
That investment is not just in high tech stuff like CD mastering
systems, but also low tech stuff such as the shelf space in record
stores, consumer acceptance of the CD medium, accumulated libraries of
CD's in private hands, millions of CD players installed in automobiles,
and so forth.  Even though CD's were in most respects considerably
superior to LP's, it took some number of years for them to displace
LP's.  One of the "breakthroughts" that made CD marketing possible was
the invention of CD packaging that could be used to adapt the relatively
small form factor of CD's into the traditional large record bins that
had been built into every record store built for the past 40 years.

What that means is it's a very safe bet that a museum 100 years from now
*will* be able to read a CD.  It's probable that archaelogists a
thousand yaers from now will be familiar with CD technology, and have
experts available who can read them.  It's quite possible archaelogists
working 10,000 years from now will find sufficient numbers of CD's
preserved in weird obscure ways to make it worth their while to decipher
what's on all those CD's, if they care.  All of these are safe bets,
because today, with our interest in history: we can play records
recorded a century ago on tin-foil, or for that matter, purchase used
books printed a century ago on decent paper.  We have experts in museums
who can read ancient writings scribbled in ogham on old sticks and
wooden tags over a thousand years ago.  And we have archaelogists who
are quite busy piecing together what people were really doing with all
those rocks at the close of the ice age, and there's serious speculation
about the possibility of someday finding "natural" phonographic
recordings fossilized in prehistoric turned pottery or other hard
material.

response 20 of 22:

Apr 9 02:16 UTC 1995

If you look at the original edison phonograph, you're looking at a very
simple mechanism.  Tin-foil, wrapped over a wax cylinder, is turned by a
hand-crank, while a stylus attached to a diaphram is pressed against the
tin-foil.  A mechanism to move the stylus parallel to the axis completes
the picture.  There's nothing in any part of this mechanism that could
not have been made a century before - say, by good old Ben Franklin.
Indeed, about 90% of the mechanism is the same as a good old mechanical
lathe, and those date back to prehistoric times.  That means it's
actually kind of amazing nobody came up with the idea much earlier.  The
egyptians, for instance, were excellent craftsmen, and a phonograph
would have been well within reach of their technology.  It's easy to
imagine that, with only a slightly different turnout of history, we
could be looking at thousands of phonograph cylinders of the pharaohs
instead of papyrus records.  Or the chinese, or the romans, or almost
any of the major ancient cultures.  And who knows - there's still hope;
perhaps we'll find some ancient clever chinese craftsman made one
example as a toy.  There's some precedent for this; recently, some
electroplated jewelry was found in egypt.  As near as can be determined,
some ancient jeweler figured out how to do it, probably made a lot of
money cheating his customers, and of course didn't tell anyone so the
secret died with him.

Ancient sound records would of course be fascinating.  We know almost
nothing about the vowel structure of ancient egyptian or hebrew; for
instance.  Or take music; written music is actually a very recent
invention.  We have virtually no information on the rhythms or harmonies
of the romans, greeks, egyptians, or other ancient cultures.  We know a
bit about what instruments they played; but the actual instruments
themselves are about the only clue we have as to what they did.
Imagine, if you will, trying to recreate the music of the Beatles from
the broken remains of one electronic piano found a thousand years from
now.

Be that as it may; we're out of luck so far as regarding actual
deliberate sound recordings.  *BUT* - as I said, the lathe is about 90%
of the mechanism of a primitive phonograph.  The pottery wheel also has
potential in this direction.  All that would be necessary is a material
of sufficient fineness to record sound frequencies, plus a stylus that
is of sufficient sharpness & fineness to actually pick up sound waves &
record them.  So, the question is, can we find examples of "accidental"
phonograph recordings? Even 15 seconds of ancient spoken egyptian would
be worth it, in terms of expanding our understanding of egyptian.  Or,
if we could catch someone humming an ancient popular ditty?

Such ancient recordings could even predate the invention of the wheel.
A long faint scratch made on a bone surface by a bored caveman holding a
suitable stylus *might* suffice to record sound - and we have many
unanswered questions regarding the origin of speech.

response 22 of 22:

Apr 12 05:40 UTC 1995

Well, something like that.  It's one of those signal to noise kinds of
problems.