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// The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google // By Nicholas Carr Summary by Kristin Bryan //The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google//, written by Nicholas Carr depicts the similarities of electrification and computerization. Carr describes electricity and information technology as general purpose technologies (GPT), broad platforms on which many different applications can be constructed. He paints an enlightening picture of the history of our modern civilization and the technology as it was born through the Industrial Revolution. He tells of the progression of early computers, then he tells of how information technology is changing the world as we know it as much as electricity changed our world only a century ago. Carr begins by telling the story of Henry Burden, a Scottish engineer, who in 1851 built the largest industrial waterwheel in upstate New York near the junction of the Hudson River and the freshly dug Erie Canal. The power was harnessed and delivered to power all of Burden’s fantastic inventions, however it was the efficient production of mechanical power that made him rich and famous more so than the products that he produced. A mere 50 years later the wheel was abandoned and grown over with weeds. Manufacturers didn’t have to be in the power generating business anymore, they could run their machines with electricity generated in distant power plants. Burden’s waterwheel, steam engines and electrical generators became obsolete. Large scale electric utility was made possible by the engineering of the electric motor, but what made it successful were the economic benefits that it brought. It was much more efficient to produce electricity on a large scale and have many buyers to hook into it than for individual factories to produce their own power. The price of electricity fell so fast that it was soon possible for every business and home to be able to afford electric power. With the Industrial Revolution in full swing electric lights changed the rhythm of life itself and electrical appliances brought the industrial revolution into the home. Within just a few generations the world changed into what we know it as today. Carr writes, “It has become almost impossible for us to imagine what life was like before electricity began to flow freely from the sockets in our walls.” (Car, 2008, pg. 12) So much of our life is encompassed with electricity. Carr then begins to tell of the birth of the modern computer. In 1880 a machine called a punch-card tabulator was invented by an engineer named Herman Hollerith which operated by punching a whole in a card in a certain location to indicate specific information. It was the creation of the binary system which operates today’s digital computers. The purpose of the machine was to tabulate the U.S. Census and proved to be amazingly fast and saved millions of dollars. This drew the attention of large industries who with the birth of electrification had grown large and needed to process information more quickly with greater accuracy. In the 1940’s the first true commercial computer, the UNIVAC was built. At the time it was hard for many to see that there was truly a need for such intensive mathematical calculation. Even distinguished mathematicians claimed that the country would, “need no more than a half dozen of them, mainly for military and scientific research.”(Carr, 2008, pg. 48) By 1954 the UNIVAC was installed and running major private companies such as General Electric, US Steel and Westinghouse. Soon after the introduction of the UNIVAC, IBM introduced it’s own mainframe computer and by the 1960’s Honeywell, General Electric, RCA and others were also selling computers. In the 1950’s software programming companies like Computer Sciences Corporation and Computer Applications Inc., were founded. By the end of the 1960’s companies devoted less than 10% of its budget to information technology. Thirty years later it was up to 45%. (Carr, 2008, pg. 51) Within that thirty years computers became smaller, cheaper and more powerful, but most importantly computers became personal. Carr explains that the revolution of electrification and that of computation are strikingly similar. In the past 50 years since the first mainframe was installed, businesses have been installing hardware and software automating every aspect of their business. Just as Burden was competitive by successfully powering his factories, modern industries had no choice but to be in the business of data processing. Just as the electrical power was made efficient and accessible by large scale grids the advance in the power of microprocessors and the capacity of data storage systems, new computing utilities are achieving economic scale far beyond what most companies could achieve on their own. Rather than buying expensive software, companies are “plugging into the new grid.” (Carr, 2008, pg. 48) Carr explains, just as affordable electricity brought the Industrial Revolution into private homes, advances in information processors like the Google search engine, bring computing to individuals. Computing is going the same direction that electricity did. Information computing will take place globally instead of fragmented on individual computers. Each revolution brought complex and often bewildering changes for individuals, companies and entire industries. They had to transform and figure out how to apply the technology to their business. As with any aspect of life, change is hard but looking back you cannot imagine life without it. Carr’s interpretation of the changes that have gone on over the past century and a half amazed me. The parallels that he pointed out in this book were transforming. He gave a lot of great information and interesting facts about computers that I never knew. Just as electricity took over the world and became a global utility distributed on a broad scale, information processing is driven in the same direction. This is a good book to read if you would like to know where technology is headed.

Carr, N. (2008). //The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google//. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.