ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

"Like a magnifying glass collecting rays of light": The first "International Conference on Information Processing" in Paris, 1959

• In Event: Rewiring Humans 1: Biology, Psychotherapy, and Philosophy in the Age of Digital Computers

English Abstract

Following the rapid development of certain types of computing devices during the Second World War, and the subsequent invention of the modern electronic computer, several meetings and conferences about these new computing machines and their usage in science and business were held in the United States and in Western European countries from 1946 onward. However, it took until 1959 for the first "International Conference on Information Processing" to be held at UNESCO's Permanent Headquarters in Paris. The objective of this conference, convened by UNESCO, was to facilitate the international exchange of information in this novel field, and it proved to be a remarkable success, with almost 2,000 individuals from 37 countries in attendance. The objective of the lecture is to describe the course and content structure of the congress in order to analyse the status and research agenda of the nascent field of 'computing' at the end of the 1950s. It will be argued that the computing field was at a crucial crossroads at that time. This assertion is further substantiated by an examination of the arduous negotiations undertaken by various national delegates concerning the structure, content, and presentations at the congress in the period leading up to the 1958 event, as perceived from the vantage point of German scientists.

Author

• Ulf Hashagen, Deutsches Museum