The Computer and the Mind of Man

Released: 1962-12-03

Runtime: 30 minutes

Episode Overview

The first program serves as a basic introduction to computers. Dr. Richard C. Hamming, research mathematician at Bell Telephone Laboratories, discusses the computer revolution – “speed, cost and effort favor the computer over the laboratory approach.” Dr. Ernest Nagel, a leading logician and philosopher at Columbia University, talks about the relationship of man and machine and the relationship of the symbolic world of mathematics to the real world of objects and events.

Series Overview

In the 1940s a different kind of tool was invented a tool for extending certain powers of mans mind, the electronic computer. It is the fast, reliable, and tireless performance of a variety of arithmetic and logical operatic is which gives the computer its great utility and power. What this exciting invention means to mankind now and in the future is the subject of this provocative series.