Slashdot Mirror
Krawtchouk's Mind
A reader writes: "Central Europe Review is running an article on a gulag-condemned Soviet scientist whose contribution to the first computer is virtually unknown because of the Cold War mentality that infected much of society on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
The story tells of how in 1937, American digital computer pioneer John Atanasoff came across a Myhailo Krawtchouk paper on a new method for finding approximate solutions to differential equations. Atanasoff tried sending a letter to him, but received no response. Krawtchouk had been attainted for giving a favorable review of the work of "enemies of the people" and shipped to Siberia for 20 years of gold mining, where he died four years later. Krawtchouk's biography gives a more detailed account of how Krawtchouk was labeled a "Polish spy" and "Ukrainian nationalist," stripped of his Academy of Sciences membership, and forced to sign a confession -- that he later retracted -- under torture and threats upon his family.
"
What about Colossus?
It's a shame that we couldn't do that twenty to thirty years ago or else Bill Gates could of gotten 20 years of coal mining in PA.
It could use a little more meat, however - exactly how was Krawtchouk's work influential? Anybody care to dig a little further (I would, but work has a bad habit of getting in the way sometimes)?
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
..the Cold War mentality that infected much of society on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The story tells of how in 1937...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Cold War and the Iron Curtain didn't begin until after WWII, in the late 1940's.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I think the first computer was invented in 1936 by a German scientist, Konrad Zuse, who later had to flee to Switzerland because of the war... At least that't About.com claims.
You know, it's really funny how things can be invented in several places at the same time... Like the modern guitar as we know it was come up with in China, the Middle East and Spain at the exact same times (and not chronologically, implying that the invention would have traveled)... Or how Pythagores, Zarathustra, Buddha and Lao-Tse, who each pioneered philosophy in their own continent, were contemporaries.
This isn't really even a communist thing. Geek persecution on both sides of the wall was rough. I mean, where's Alan Turing?
Although similar persecutions continue in some countries to these days, the public opinion in many democracies would not tolerate any outside action against the oppressing governments.
Living your life under Stalin, Kim of North Korea, Castro, Saddam Hussein is worse than war... Trade sanctions -- a modern democracies' usual "civilized" weapon against each other -- don't work against these scumbags. They pass the suffering onto their people...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Was the atanasoff-berry, There had been other computers (such as mechanical) before that time.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
unless he is the "a reader" that submitted the story
6
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/4/27/5153/7362
note the word-for-word plagiarization/ lifting
just trying to keep it honest
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
..in the US a war for freedom always starts with news like this :)
Just goes to show that great minds did exist in Ukraine and Russia, and still do, they just need to be discovered. I guess living in Ukraine for a couple years I favor Ukraine.
Then beeing a "geek".
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
...differential equations find approximate solutions of you.
No offense to Krawtchouk but I am sort of getting tired of everyone and their uncle claiming credit for the invention or at least some of the fundemental work that contributed to the first computers. It seems to me just about everyone is now claiming credit for having invented the first modern computers. I think the invention of the first computers was like the invention of the video game. It doesn't matter who created the first ones and what fundemental work they did, the ones who get credit are the ones whose ideas went somewhere.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
How much innovation have we lost to this horrible political system?
Nearly as much as is lost in the sanctioned monopolies of the fabulously efficient capitalism, that you no doubt, love I would wager.
held without trail? forced to confess? sounds like he was a victim of the soviet ïàòðèîò act.
This issue has come up in the Computational Complexity course I am taking.
In particular the Cook-Levin Theorem wah proved simultaneously by Steve Cook in the US and Lenoid Levin in the USSR.
Additionally the Immerman-Szelepcsenyi Theorem was proven by Neil Immerman (US) and Richard Szelepcsenyi (Slovakia).
Neither were known for some time due to the lack of communication on both sides.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
It's mainly that true Marxist communism is an economic theory, and not a political system. Marxist-Leninism, OTOH, has been viewed as what "True Communism" is to the sheepish West. It's so easy to demonize a demonic institution like totalitarianism, and label that as the "Axis of Evil" (1.0)
But, IIRC, the Z1, Z2 and Z3 weren't Turing Machines. Was Colossus a Turing Machine, or did physical representations of Turning Machines come later?
The printer was completed in 2000. It featured variable spacing and line wrapping. Not bad for something that is 100% mechanical.
It should be noted that as with the machine talked about here, this was a machine for solving simple differential equations (tides) as well as more standard types of maths (i.e., logs, sines and so on) for the production of tables. It was not a general purpose computer, that term was reserved for his Analytical Engine - which was designed but never produced. However Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace wrote some programs for it, converting equations into algorithms and generating register settings which could be punched on the Jacquard cards (Babbage pinched this idea from the manufacturers of automatic-looms, a long time before Hollerith).
If Babbage had completed the Analytical engine, we could have been in a very different world. One version would have been hypothesized in William Gibson's "The Difference Engine".
See my journal, I write things there
Krawtchouk's woes can't be attributed to "the Cold War mentality that infected much of society on both sides of the Iron Curtain...".
His obscurity, yes. But not his abuse by the Soviet Union. Hemos' casual paraphrasing of one line in the Reviews' piece serves to apportion responsibility for the Cold War equally among the Soviets and the U.S. This is wrong. Soviet totalitarianism was responsible for both Krawtchouk's abuse and his obscurity, while Soviet military occupation of one-half of Europe, the imposition of Soviet totalitarianism there and an expressed intent to eliminate democratic governments elsewhere were the causes of the Cold War.
Some revisionist historians -- who always seem to me to be embarrassed by democracy -- will disagree, but can they truthfully imagine the Cold War happening if the Soviet Union had been a free and democratic nation with no expansionist aims?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
To anyone familiar with Scientology, and especially its RPF, this story sounds eerily familiar.
y /
The secret Library of scientology:
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Librar
Operation Clambake:
http://www.xenu.net
(I'm still waiting for my goldenrod)
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Time to call a spade a fucking shovel. We were the good guys, they were the bad guys, they lost, end of story.
No kidding. Did anyone else catch the irony in the poster's writeup?
"Central Europe Review is running an article on a gulag-condemned Soviet scientist whose contribution to the first computer is virtually unknown because of the Cold War mentality that infected much of society on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Sheesh. We apparently had a shameful "Cold War mentality", although the other side was condemning scientists to the gulag - and to obscurity!
ABW
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
What you say? One country invading another for natural resources under the pretext of liberation and justice?
Why, that is so far-fetched it's incomprehensible-flaven-goyven. With the oil, and the grudges, and cowboy hats, and the terrrism, and the nuculur threat, and the weapons of mass destruuuuuuuction.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Actual, true Marxism has never been practiced in any country, wether said country claims to be Communist or not. Stalinism, and to a lesser extent Leninism, is hardly Marxism but more a form of totalitarian dictatorship with a planed economy. It suited the west to call those countries Communist, however, and the terminology has stuck.
I agree that most kids who espose Communism do not understand the distinction, or if they do, do not understand what actually happened under these Stalinist "leaders".
Churchill's famous speech referred to the effective extension of Soviet borders to that of the European countries under their influence after the war.
See my journal, I write things there
Than that of Dr Donald Knuth. In a bygone era, he would be grave robbing to find parts to bring his creations to life. Fortunately, we was born into the 20th century, and thus has spent his life on programming and algorithms.
Well, aside from the bit, where after he didn't like the typesetting of his first book, he wrote a typesetting language and designed fonts for it, rewrote the book in TeX, a language of much evil and dark arts and had it printed again. Then retired to make it his lifes' work to perfect his books, "The Art of Computer Programming", or TAOCP
Scary but brilliant man -> http://www-cs-staff.stanford.edu/~knuth/faq.html
Certainly the US has its faults, however sending scientists off to death camps for having the 'wrong opinion' is not
one of them.
What idiot moderated me 'overrated'? Turing's homosexuality is well know, and the reason for most of his problems.
In 1952, Turing's home was burglarized by a friend of a man with whom he was having an affair. Refusing to be intimidated, he reported the crime. During the investigation, he did not hide his homosexuality from the police. He was labeled a pervert and was charged with gross indecency. He agreed to submit to hormone treatments rather than go to prison. He was injected with the female hormone estrogen. It was believed that estrogen injections were useful in curbing sexual urges.
The stress and humiliation of his treatment at the hands of the government that he served loyally throughout his life led to his mental deterioration. Alan Mathison Turing committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide in 1954. He was 41 years old.
Fucking illiterate morons running the show, and hiding behind an 'overrated' mod as well.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It's excuse: We Cannot Violate The Sovereignty of Any Member of the International Community.
Alas, so far it was the best thing that people came up with. Because otherwise, you just have the rule of the strongest on the international scene. This time it is you, but next time the coin can flip the other side. Last two world wars are good enough arguments against Social Darwinism.
No, really, did you ever considered why Lynch law is outlawed? After all, there are lots of evil people who look guilty, but whose crimes can't be proved in courts?
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
There is no such thing as a sanctioned monopoly in capitalism.
In Soviet Russia.... ...oh, never mind.
Yeah, but the problem is that Marxism as a theory does not explain AT ALL how it should be put into practice. And the ONLY way it has been put into practice is, well, what you saw in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Cuba, Cambodia, etc.
If people were walking around with German SPD t-shirts (supporting socialist economics) - hey, that's cool with me. But communism has only existed as horrible dictatorial regimes. It has no existence other than as horrible dictatorial regimes.
This is not the fault of the "sheepish west" confusing some pure theory with the practice. This is the intelligent west understanding that the theory only exists in someone's mind as a utopia that cannot be put into practice, and what actually can be put into practice is horrible. That's not sheepish. That's perceptive.
I guess living in Ukraine for a couple years I favor Ukraine.
The Ukraine is WEAK!
-Kramer
: )
You can't take the sky from me...
You should do some rereading I think. I don't think it was the "mentality...on both sides" that is responsible for his anonymity.
The problem is that actual true Marxism CANNOT be practiced on anything other than a microscopic scale because it is fundamentally incompatible with human nature. Marxism is bullshit. It doesn't even work on paper, let alone in practice. Any and all attempts to implement a Marxist system have led directly to totalitarianism. The only way of destroying the concept of private property and getting people to work for free is through force and violence. The result is not a Marxist utopia but a Stalinist hell. Make no mistake, there are among us right now people who would, if given free reign, do any number of horrific and terrible things to others around them for no other reason than because they can. The wolf is always at the door. These are the types that come to power when individual rights are destroyed and the power of the state is unchecked. Remember that the next time the left-wingers start in with their little song and dance.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
We honor them for winning the war for us with free hormone therapy!
Hey, weren't we fighting the NAZIs because they behaved like that?!!!
McCarthy was a nitemare to be sure and the Hoover era was nothing to be proud of but you better get a little historical perspective as well. "The Hoover-era FBI could give the Soviet secret police a few lessons in ethics-free techniques as well" you have got to be out of your tiny little mind! Stalin killed as many if not more people than Hitler. The US goverment might have made some peoples lives a "living hell" by our standards but not by USSR standards. Some screen writer that could no longer make the megabucks and might have to sell his big house and get a lower paying job is nothing compaired to being shipped to camp in Siberia! BTW the only reason that you know so much about McCarthy is that he went after Hollywood and the "Artists" (sic) there. If he went only after union leaders or coalminers he would have been long forgoten by now.
I had a conversation about the McCarthy era with a film theory major. According to them, damn near all of the writers that were blacklisted were writing again within six months under pseudonyms.
Could be BS.
Perostroika is SO 80's!
How can you say a machine built in 1943 came before one built in 1937-42. That's at least one year earlier.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Plenty of American scientists have been persecuted for political reasons, including Oppenheimer, as well as many lesser known ones. Despite being an American, I find it hypocritical that people find a desire to bash the USSR for things the US did as well. Like decry people killed in the early days of the USSR when the US wiped out most of the Indians here, as well as however many Africans were dumped overboard after being packed in like sardines on slave ships. Or remember persecuted scientists in the Soviet Union, when there were persecuted scientists in the United States. I think it would be better to focus on people in Kansas and wherever else in the US that want to burn biology books and replace them with the book of Genesis. Americans have been brainwashed by anti-Bolshevist propaganda since 1917, and had ugly incidents from their past like the Bonus March absent from the history books (except history books like A People's History of the United States), or even incidents of working class power and solidarity (like the San Francisco general strike). I'm not a Marxist-Leninist by any means, but this tendency among the right to try to revive the USSR from the dead to bash it again while trying to whitewash the American ruling classes history is lame, and I don't feel it serves working class Americans like myself.
Incarcerated for being an "Enemy of the People".
The totalitarian mentality: it's in the USA, and growing stronger by the minute.
Hey, you seem a reasonable dude, so let me just give my input (I'm a marxist-leninist)
:)
Yeah, but the problem is that Marxism as a theory does not explain AT ALL how it should be put into practice. And the ONLY way it has been put into practice is, well, what you saw in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Cuba, Cambodia, etc.
True... it's sometimes so vague that it's hard to define what each person means bu Communism, and even more to explain what road should be taken to achieve it. Is all the countries you said I know I don't want to send people to labour forces BUT I would like a State-costed universal access to Higher Education. I don't support killing people with different opinions, but I would like a Health Care system that tended to all the citizens independently of money. I can't agree with censoring books or films, but I really do think that the capitalist system IS based in exploitation and would like to live in one in which Men were given equal rights and equeal access to further themselves.
I know this is all way to generic, whih kinda proves your point, but it's the best I can no at this stage
If people were walking around with German SPD t-shirts (supporting socialist economics) - hey, that's cool with me. But communism has only existed as horrible dictatorial regimes. It has no existence other than as horrible dictatorial regimes.
Well, the end result proved to have, er, "shortcommings" in several countries where it was introdiced. Still, most of the really terrible things that happened have nothing to do with Communism, but it is true that the implementations so far proved to be very prone to develop several authoritarian and dictatorial traits. This is what concerns me more, namely how to avoid it.
This is not the fault of the "sheepish west" confusing some pure theory with the practice. This is the intelligent west understanding that the theory only exists in someone's mind as a utopia that cannot be put into practice, and what actually can be put into practice is horrible. That's not sheepish. That's perceptive.
I find that conclusion a bit on the simplistic side... I find that the ideals hold for themselves and it is for those ideals that I fight, even today.
cheers,
fsmunoz
Indeed. I'm not so blind as to believe that Marxism has never been practiced just because they didn't want to. The Bolshivek Revolution was done with (Mostly) good intentions, but was doomed from the start. There is a reason China is less Communist and more Capatilist.
I guess it's too late for a "Free Krawtchouk" website and defense fund t-shirt sales.
http://tangra.bitex.com/eng/atanasoff/who_is.htm
As others have posted, this article is a verbatim copy of the Kuro5hin article. When I asked Hemos to respond I got modded down to from 0 as an AC to -1. I'm not trying to be mean to Hemos, but it is reasonable to want to know what happened and how this occurred. I again invite Hemos to respond.
/. has even less integrity than indymedia... and that is truly sad.
CNN? The same network that now admits it colored its reporting on Saddam to keep reporters in Bahgdad?
Or maybe it's China's state-run news agency? You know, the one that even now is still trying to sweep SARS under the rug?
It's obvious now that the Iraqis think that the short war they had to endure to get rid of the Taliban and Saddam was well worth it.
And if you think this isn't true, tell me who pulled down all those Saddam statues?
Oh right, it was all staged. I guess it's better to believe that's not true but this is:
1. The US invaded Iraq for its oil because GWB is an evil person given to conspiracies to take over the world - and only you are smart enough to see that.
2. The Iraqi people were better off under Saddam - after all, 99.8% voted for him.
There's a good chance you're IP address will be banned from posting...
Ah, yes. The desperation of a dying idealogy. Maybe the millions of dead victims of Stalin, National Socialist Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, and Mao can begin to rest in peace, and the starving millions in North Korea can have hope for a better world.
But I bet this post gets moderated down badly, because we all know that morons can't stand to have someone disagree with them, especially if they actually have the gall to use evidence!!!
(and if this post pisses you off because you think I'm calling you a moron, how about engaging those brain cells for some actual thought instead of attacking soemone who tells you something you don't want to hear?)
No country of society is perfect - so let's use some real-world examples of how the US acts compared to other historical world powers:
Ancient Rome - utterly destroyed Carthage, doing all they could to make the land uninhabitable.
Ghengis Khan - wiped out whole cites and towns that fought against him.
Spain - utterly destroyed native Central and South American civilizations.
USSR - Stalin, gulags, etc.
United States - conquered Japan and Germany, spent literally billions to rebuild their economies.
What other great power in the history of the world has ever rebuilt an enemy so fast the within decades of that enemy being utterly defeated it would have the second largest economy on the entire planet. Anyone have the balls to look up when Japan's economy become #2 in the world?
Anyone here have the balls to admit no other power in the history of the planet has been as benevolent as the US?
I'm such a troll.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
It just goes to show you how/why these countries always fails are in BIG trouble. Germany lost the war because they executed all of the smart people. China had thier cultural revolution and sent every smart person to prison where most died. Vietnam had their execution of their smartest people. Same thing with Iraq and Afghanistan, the smart people where smart enough to get the HELL OUT of there. What's left? The stupid people! It shows today. Russia collapsed in a big implosion under it's own weight.
It's no wonder you didn't see more people walking around with helmets on trying to wipe the drool off of thier faces. HA HA HA!
You Americans are so bad on recognizing other nations. You even did not read the article you are
referring to - guys father was Ukrainian,
mother was Polish - how the f... does it
make him Russian ? He was born in Austro-Hungary,
then move to Russian part of Ukraine that
became Ukrainian Republic of the Soviet Union.
For me he was clearly Ukrainian.
I guess everything occupied by Russia is Russian
for you.
haha.. please come on.. you're right about finland, but sweden was neither attacked nor invaded, please read up. (and yes, i'm from sweden)
you're right about finland, but sweden was neither attacked nor invaded
No, Sweden wasn't occupied by the British, but the government gave serious consideration to the idea. Aiding Finland in the Winter War would have meant moving troops by sea through the Baltic or over land through Norway and Sweden. The Baltic would have been a dangerous proposition given the presence of Soviet submarines, but the land option presented a good pre-empt any German occupation. Any furore about occupying Sweden would have been countered with an argument that the troops were only securing transit routes to Finland. This would of happened after a cursory request for transit rights which Britain expected to be denied - Sweden was very keen to remain neutral, despite sending small numbers of aircraft and volunteers to fight in the Winter War. The idea was ultimately canned when the Finns couldn't hold out against the renewed Soviet offensive, but would have been risky anyway given Swedens rugged terrain.
Chris
Now the paretn was wrong about Castro, living in commie Cuba isn't that bad.
But if you would just open your eyes and read some of the stuff that goes\went on in these other countries...
Ever heard of testimonies?
do some googling.
the worst of those three by far is North Korea.
In war you don't get tortured, no one starved during this last Iraq war, thank God the americans handeld this, what if it came to a bloody revolution, killing half the populace and lasting two years, would that be better?
In a war you generally do not get persecuted for your religion or creed.
You don't have to stand by weeks after weeks watching loved ones die from starvation and diseases.
And wars generally don't last that long.
Nor do the masses come into the line of fire.
Most people during WWII saw just a few days of actual fighting.
The worst part was German invasion.
Germans taking your freedoms, your property, making a mess of everything, oppressing you.
Kim and co do all these things, but the diffrence is:
Wars have hope, that the enemy might be defeated, who would get rid of Stalin?
The europeans could also have peace if they chose to accept german oppression, but most didn't 'cause that was worse.
The US in the 18th century didn't have to fight a war with britain, but the oppression was too much for them (and Kim and co are much worse than a 18th century british monarchy).
Why have people fought wars against the romans, european invaders and other oppressors?
Oppression is worse than war.
It's perfectly true that the Soviet state mistreated and murdered its own citizens on a level that can't compare with any abuses in major democracies. But that doesn't change the fact that abuses did occur in the west. It's not enough to say, "Well, the Russkies were much worse." Every criminal can point to somebody else who's much worse. Doesn't excuse a thing.
It used to amuse me that the U.S. was #3 in the percentage of its populace that was incarcerated. The amusing thing was that #1 was the USSR, and #2 was South Africa, both countries engaged in brutal but ultimately futile suppression of dissent. Now both those countries are under new management, and The Land of the Free is uncontested for #1 on the list. Not so funny now.
Left wingers?! Right now, the right wingers are making me pretty damned nervous with regard to the destruction of individual rights, since they're the ones using 9/11 as an excuse to erode them. I consider myself a centrist, have military service, and love this country--but I'm considering getting a passport now so there's less friction if I have to leave later.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.