4 ms·

This is the same country that considered their advances in computing during World War 2 to be so important that they hid them and left the USA to capitalise on

• kwere 4y ago
  possibly having most of the political leadership made of landed gentry / old money isnt beneficial to the development of society, as changes could easily became a threat to the status quo, thats why finance became the national industry post WWII, it aligned with the interests of the top brass.
• mrjin 4y ago
  Well, you just reminded me some urinal's brand "Brexit", no kidding.
• ithkuil 4y ago
  Internexit
• MattPalmer1086 4y ago
  Yes, we are great at sacrificing long term benefit for short term advantage. Apparently our ability to break various crypto systems was regarded as too sensitive. I believe we continued to break encrypted communications for some time after the war, including those of our allies. Would be interested if anyone knows of a good history of this aspect of post war Britain.
  • Dyac 4y ago
    Sexism is apparently a big reason. Many of the early British computing experts were female. At some point it was "professionalised" and these skilled and experienced women were displaced by less skilled and less experienced men. Here's a New Statesman article about it: https://archive.is/zsijz https://archive.is/zsijz
    • orwin 4y ago
      I've talked to a scientist couple who lived that ! Basically : women were obviously too dumb to do calculus (/s), they had to do discreet math. Then, the wife managed to pin down the characters the lab had to look for (it was statistics applied to biology/agriculture, before ADN was discovered). In the papers, only the couple family name appeared, no mention of 'madam', and it was declared once. Fast forward two children later, she wants to come back to do science. Couldn't go back to the lab, refused to hire her. They both moved to another university who accept her to punch cards. She's a trained mathematician BTW. I think we're around 1965 or a bit later. She basically take over the department. Every code has to go through her. The improvement in computation power make that if you want to make realists data models, it's way faster to use computers now. Even the husband has to go through his wife, before semi-joining the department (basically still a biologist specialized in population/genetics, but now he works with a lot of computers). A late child happens (71, my godfather), but this time the husband managed to keep her place. Then a bit later mainframes appears in the university , uni administration gains power over labs and departments, she is basically demoted to an advisory position (and the husband promoted to thesis master), and decide that she does not have to work for ungrateful bastard and just left before the transition to new computer is done, basically making all dependent departments loose multiple years.
• omnicognate 4y ago
  > considered their advances in computing during World War 2 to be so important that they hid them and left the USA to capitalise on the innovation Can you expand on that or provide a link? The codebreaking work (Colossus) was kept secret until the 70s but the researchers involved went on to successful academic and commercial projects immediately after the war, with ENIAC (a more general machine than Colossus) built in 1946. The story of the UK's computer manufacturing industry over the ensuing decades is a sad one, but I'm not convinced government secrecy over WW2 technology had much to do with it. I'm no historian, though, so perhaps you can set me right.
  • ben_w 4y ago
    I think RSA is a more important example than WW2, but the GCHQ version was only 4 years ahead, 1973 rather than RSA's 1977.