The visionary Calvin Mooers
Pratchett and Gaiman's novel Good Omens features a book of prophecy, "The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch" which is absolutely accurate. Unfortunately, it is written in a style that is so oblique that nobody can understand the prophecies until they come true. E.g. one involves a "chariot of the East", which turns out to be a Toyota.
Calvin Mooers was a visionary in a similar vein, so visionary that his most significant visions are inconceivable until they come to the brink of realization. This is the story of how I stumbled into one of them.
Being on the brink of retirement, I've used my current bout of unemployment to revisit the mathematics that I did in my thesis. At the time, I thought its subject was the epitome of obscurity, but in the intervening decades, my thesis has acquired 170 references in the mathematical literature. I've been revisiting what I considered the "open questions" or "next steps" of the subject.
Currently, I'm writing up an academic mathematics paper about one slice of those next steps. Back when I was a boy, if a paper wasn't good enough to be published in a real journal, it would be a dead end, at best a few xerox copies would live on in the filing cabinets of a few mathematicians you knew well enough to send "preprints" to. But now, there's arXiv, a web site where you can post your preprint. Since the search engines spider arXiv, your work is visible to the world of mathematics, for whatever it's worth. So whatever incremental value my paper provides won't be lost to the field, even if it falls short of publishable quality.
In the paper, I put a footnote
The author would like to thank arXiv, Sci-Hub, Internet Archive, and Google Scholar for providing a world-class research library.
Which really is true. I can get an MIT library card at a discount, but there's no real value in it anymore; all the papers I need to refer to have been bootlegged by Sci-Hub, and Google Scholar replaces Science Citation Index (the reference which tells you, for a given paper, what papers reference it, that is, allow you to trace a subject forward in time). All of these I can access from my living room for no cost beyond basic Internet access. (And so can any mathematician in, e.g., Nigeria.)
So then I stumble across a quote I recorded long ago in my commonplace book:
In my discussion I shall bypass treating such useful and imminent tasks as the use of machines to store, transfer, and emit texts, so that at the time that you need to refer to a paper, even in an obscure journal, you can have a copy in hand within, say, twenty-four hours. [...] Neither shall I consider the application of machines to the integration of national and international library systems so that at any first-rate library, you will have at your command the catalogs of the major collections of the world. These are all coming -- but it should be noted with respect to them that the problems of human cooperation ranging from person-to-person to nation-to-nation cooperation are more serious than some of the machine and technical problems involved.
-- Calvin N. Mooers, "The Next Twenty Years in Information Retrieval: Some Goals and Predictions", March, 1959 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1457838.1457853
This quote has become somewhat hackneyed since about 1993 because it has been seen as a prediction of the Web, about 35 years in advance. But at least in regard to academic mathematics, arXiv and Sci-Hub are needed to break the paywalls and allow universal access. That required 52 years after 1959, not 20 years, to be achieved.
But the careful reader will note that in his paper, he says he is not going to discuss such straightforward things. His focus is on the possibilities of using computers to tag documents with keywords describing their topics and having computers translate documents into a language more convenient to the user. He then notes that this foreshadows the possibility of having the computer extract facts from documents, store them, then later return the facts a user wants in whatever form the user wants. E.g.,
This means that you could go to an information center, describe a certain kind of information needed, have the machine assist you in making your request more definite, and then order it: "Provide me with an 800-word article, not requiring more than an undergraduate chemistry background, on the deterioration of poly-isomers by sunlight." After a short, but decent, interval, the machine would come forth with such an essay.
This being 2023, I decided to input the order into ChatGPT. Wiktionary(!) tells me that there is no word "poly-isomers", so I guess that "polymer" was intended. ChatGPT gives me a 649-word response that is reasonably good:
Q: Provide me with an 800-word article, not requiring more than an undergraduate chemistry background, on the deterioration of polymers by sunlight.
A: Polymers are ubiquitous in our daily lives, found in everything from the packaging of our food to the materials that make up our cars and buildings. However, exposure to sunlight can cause the degradation of these materials, leading to their deterioration and eventual failure. In this article, we will explore the mechanisms behind the degradation of polymers by sunlight and the ways in which we can prevent or slow down this process.
The degradation of polymers by sunlight is a complex process that can be initiated by a number of different mechanisms. One of the most common causes of polymer degradation is photooxidation, a process in which the polymer molecules are broken down by reactive oxygen species (ROS) that are generated by the absorption of UV radiation. This process occurs when the energy of the absorbed UV radiation is transferred to the polymer molecule, leading to the formation of excited states and the subsequent production of ROS.
Another mechanism of polymer degradation by sunlight is chain scission, a process in which the polymer molecules are broken down by the cleavage of chemical bonds within the polymer backbone. This process can be initiated by the absorption of UV radiation, which can break chemical bonds within the polymer chains, leading to the formation of shorter, more reactive fragments. These fragments can then react with oxygen to form ROS, which can cause further degradation.
In addition to photooxidation and chain scission, the degradation of polymers by sunlight can also be initiated by other mechanisms such as thermal degradation, in which the polymer molecules are broken down by the absorption of heat energy from the sun, and photolysis, in which the polymer molecules are broken down by the direct absorption of UV radiation.
The extent of polymer degradation by sunlight can be influenced by a number of factors, including the chemical composition of the polymer, the presence of stabilizers or additives, and the intensity and duration of sunlight exposure. Polymers that contain a high degree of unsaturation or functional groups that are susceptible to oxidation, such as ester or amide groups, are particularly vulnerable to degradation by sunlight. However, the presence of stabilizers or additives such as UV absorbers or antioxidants can help to slow down or prevent this process.
UV absorbers are compounds that are added to polymers to absorb and dissipate UV radiation, preventing it from being absorbed by the polymer molecules and initiating the process of photooxidation. These compounds work by absorbing the UV radiation and converting it into heat energy, which is then dissipated into the surrounding environment. Antioxidants, on the other hand, are compounds that are added to polymers to scavenge ROS and prevent them from initiating the process of photooxidation. These compounds work by reacting with ROS and converting them into less reactive species, preventing them from causing further degradation.
In addition to the use of stabilizers and additives, the degradation of polymers by sunlight can also be prevented or slowed down by other means such as the use of protective coatings or the selection of appropriate polymer materials for outdoor applications. Protective coatings such as paints or varnishes can be applied to the surface of polymers to provide an additional barrier against sunlight exposure, preventing UV radiation from reaching the polymer molecules and initiating the process of degradation. The selection of appropriate polymer materials for outdoor applications is also important, as some polymers are inherently more resistant to sunlight exposure than others. For example, polyethylene and polypropylene are highly resistant to degradation by sunlight, while polymers such as polycarbonate and polyvinyl chloride are more susceptible to degradation.
In conclusion, the degradation of polymers by sunlight is a complex process that can be initiated by a number of different mechanisms, including photooxidation, chain scission, thermal degradation, and photolysis. The extent of degradation can be influenced by a number of factors, including the chemical composition of the polymer,
Mooers was right, though it took 63 years, not 20 years, to reach this stage of automated information retrieval. One year ago, I doubt many people remembered his prediction.
Calvin Mooers was a visionary in a similar vein, so visionary that his most significant visions are inconceivable until they come to the brink of realization. This is the story of how I stumbled into one of them.
Being on the brink of retirement, I've used my current bout of unemployment to revisit the mathematics that I did in my thesis. At the time, I thought its subject was the epitome of obscurity, but in the intervening decades, my thesis has acquired 170 references in the mathematical literature. I've been revisiting what I considered the "open questions" or "next steps" of the subject.
Currently, I'm writing up an academic mathematics paper about one slice of those next steps. Back when I was a boy, if a paper wasn't good enough to be published in a real journal, it would be a dead end, at best a few xerox copies would live on in the filing cabinets of a few mathematicians you knew well enough to send "preprints" to. But now, there's arXiv, a web site where you can post your preprint. Since the search engines spider arXiv, your work is visible to the world of mathematics, for whatever it's worth. So whatever incremental value my paper provides won't be lost to the field, even if it falls short of publishable quality.
In the paper, I put a footnote
The author would like to thank arXiv, Sci-Hub, Internet Archive, and Google Scholar for providing a world-class research library.
Which really is true. I can get an MIT library card at a discount, but there's no real value in it anymore; all the papers I need to refer to have been bootlegged by Sci-Hub, and Google Scholar replaces Science Citation Index (the reference which tells you, for a given paper, what papers reference it, that is, allow you to trace a subject forward in time). All of these I can access from my living room for no cost beyond basic Internet access. (And so can any mathematician in, e.g., Nigeria.)
So then I stumble across a quote I recorded long ago in my commonplace book:
In my discussion I shall bypass treating such useful and imminent tasks as the use of machines to store, transfer, and emit texts, so that at the time that you need to refer to a paper, even in an obscure journal, you can have a copy in hand within, say, twenty-four hours. [...] Neither shall I consider the application of machines to the integration of national and international library systems so that at any first-rate library, you will have at your command the catalogs of the major collections of the world. These are all coming -- but it should be noted with respect to them that the problems of human cooperation ranging from person-to-person to nation-to-nation cooperation are more serious than some of the machine and technical problems involved.
-- Calvin N. Mooers, "The Next Twenty Years in Information Retrieval: Some Goals and Predictions", March, 1959 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1457838.1457853
This quote has become somewhat hackneyed since about 1993 because it has been seen as a prediction of the Web, about 35 years in advance. But at least in regard to academic mathematics, arXiv and Sci-Hub are needed to break the paywalls and allow universal access. That required 52 years after 1959, not 20 years, to be achieved.
But the careful reader will note that in his paper, he says he is not going to discuss such straightforward things. His focus is on the possibilities of using computers to tag documents with keywords describing their topics and having computers translate documents into a language more convenient to the user. He then notes that this foreshadows the possibility of having the computer extract facts from documents, store them, then later return the facts a user wants in whatever form the user wants. E.g.,
This means that you could go to an information center, describe a certain kind of information needed, have the machine assist you in making your request more definite, and then order it: "Provide me with an 800-word article, not requiring more than an undergraduate chemistry background, on the deterioration of poly-isomers by sunlight." After a short, but decent, interval, the machine would come forth with such an essay.
This being 2023, I decided to input the order into ChatGPT. Wiktionary(!) tells me that there is no word "poly-isomers", so I guess that "polymer" was intended. ChatGPT gives me a 649-word response that is reasonably good:
Q: Provide me with an 800-word article, not requiring more than an undergraduate chemistry background, on the deterioration of polymers by sunlight.
A: Polymers are ubiquitous in our daily lives, found in everything from the packaging of our food to the materials that make up our cars and buildings. However, exposure to sunlight can cause the degradation of these materials, leading to their deterioration and eventual failure. In this article, we will explore the mechanisms behind the degradation of polymers by sunlight and the ways in which we can prevent or slow down this process.
The degradation of polymers by sunlight is a complex process that can be initiated by a number of different mechanisms. One of the most common causes of polymer degradation is photooxidation, a process in which the polymer molecules are broken down by reactive oxygen species (ROS) that are generated by the absorption of UV radiation. This process occurs when the energy of the absorbed UV radiation is transferred to the polymer molecule, leading to the formation of excited states and the subsequent production of ROS.
Another mechanism of polymer degradation by sunlight is chain scission, a process in which the polymer molecules are broken down by the cleavage of chemical bonds within the polymer backbone. This process can be initiated by the absorption of UV radiation, which can break chemical bonds within the polymer chains, leading to the formation of shorter, more reactive fragments. These fragments can then react with oxygen to form ROS, which can cause further degradation.
In addition to photooxidation and chain scission, the degradation of polymers by sunlight can also be initiated by other mechanisms such as thermal degradation, in which the polymer molecules are broken down by the absorption of heat energy from the sun, and photolysis, in which the polymer molecules are broken down by the direct absorption of UV radiation.
The extent of polymer degradation by sunlight can be influenced by a number of factors, including the chemical composition of the polymer, the presence of stabilizers or additives, and the intensity and duration of sunlight exposure. Polymers that contain a high degree of unsaturation or functional groups that are susceptible to oxidation, such as ester or amide groups, are particularly vulnerable to degradation by sunlight. However, the presence of stabilizers or additives such as UV absorbers or antioxidants can help to slow down or prevent this process.
UV absorbers are compounds that are added to polymers to absorb and dissipate UV radiation, preventing it from being absorbed by the polymer molecules and initiating the process of photooxidation. These compounds work by absorbing the UV radiation and converting it into heat energy, which is then dissipated into the surrounding environment. Antioxidants, on the other hand, are compounds that are added to polymers to scavenge ROS and prevent them from initiating the process of photooxidation. These compounds work by reacting with ROS and converting them into less reactive species, preventing them from causing further degradation.
In addition to the use of stabilizers and additives, the degradation of polymers by sunlight can also be prevented or slowed down by other means such as the use of protective coatings or the selection of appropriate polymer materials for outdoor applications. Protective coatings such as paints or varnishes can be applied to the surface of polymers to provide an additional barrier against sunlight exposure, preventing UV radiation from reaching the polymer molecules and initiating the process of degradation. The selection of appropriate polymer materials for outdoor applications is also important, as some polymers are inherently more resistant to sunlight exposure than others. For example, polyethylene and polypropylene are highly resistant to degradation by sunlight, while polymers such as polycarbonate and polyvinyl chloride are more susceptible to degradation.
In conclusion, the degradation of polymers by sunlight is a complex process that can be initiated by a number of different mechanisms, including photooxidation, chain scission, thermal degradation, and photolysis. The extent of degradation can be influenced by a number of factors, including the chemical composition of the polymer,
Mooers was right, though it took 63 years, not 20 years, to reach this stage of automated information retrieval. One year ago, I doubt many people remembered his prediction.