Cybernetics

...so, I was perusing back issues of "Chess Life" looking for something about titles.  I was concentrating on 1950 and came across this article published Sept. 20, 1950.   I thought it was rather amazing for its time so I thought I'd share it.

This is cool. 

Pit two electronic brains against each other ... think AlphaZero vs Stockfish! 

1950 and silicon worries already.
Interesting envisionment by Julius Goodman.
Any background on him?

                                       Julius Goodman 

Julius Goodman, who was born in 1890 and died in 1966, was a decent, but not a great, tournament player from Cleveland, Ohio where he owned a furniture store,  In chess, his biggest claim-to-fame was his loss against James Schroeder in the 1949 Ohio State Open.  In that tournament, Goodman came in 9th while Schroeder, who would become the 1950 Ohio champion, came in 4th.   What brought this game into the spotlight was that Al Horowitz analyzed it in the April 1950 issue of "Chess Review."  He titled his little write-up, "Shredder Schroeder" and introduced the game with:
"Granted that White falls short, very shrt, in paying attention to the safety of his King - Schroeder's puntive shredding that starts with an elementary sacrifice still makes this game an entertaiing one. This game also, is from the Ohio State Championship."

Schroeder attributes the nickname "Shredder Schroeder" as something that worked for him since he wasn't an attacking player in style but the name intimidated his opponents. (see: http://isolanis.com/2008/02/the-shredder-schroeder-game/ )

Here's the game:

Very cool article. Prophetic, even.

Nice find, batgirl.

Thanks Sarah.
That was a genuine shredding indeed.
So he was a colunist for Chess Life as well.

Cool, they should do computer tournaments on this site

He wrote this one article. I haven't come across any other articles by Julius Goodman.

A pity. It is a good article.

 Interesting to see James Schroeder mentioned, along with one of his games. I knew Jim fairly well during my days in Cleveland, early 1970s. He was one of those fellows with a gruff exterior and a heart of gold, and was a prominent fixture in the Cleveland chess scene in those days. He passed away last year at the age of 89. Here is the tribute to him on the USCF site: https://new.uschess.org/news/remembering-james-schroeder-1927-2017/

Thanks for that.  He sounds to have been an exceptional human being as well as an exceptional chess player. 

My Dad had a course with Norbert Wiener at MIT.  He recollected that Dr. Wiener would move from left to right while writing at the blackboard, and that his belly would occasionally smudge what his hand had written. 

Fantastic!

Or in Greek: Φανταστικό!

As for cybernetics diriving from kybernetes = κυβερνήτης = governor, we indeed call government "κυβέρνηση" (kybernese) today

He was cybermessy.

Interesting.  I wonder how we went from government to digital - cyberly speaking.

Before Moore's law, it was hard to imagine how powerful computers would become. The SWAC computer mentioned was a one-off experimental machine with a limited instruction set that ran at 15kHz and had about 1k bytes of memory. The first commercial computers came out in 1951 and were slower. The first computer  I had any contact with was an IBM 650, which ran at 613 Hz and 10k bytes of drum memory at 400 Hz with a 500 byte cache of blindingly fast 1kHz magnetic core memory. My cell phone runs about 2 million times faster and has 800,000 x as much memory. It was pretty visionary back then to imagine a computer that could do much more than apply an evaluation function and pick a move. 

the times they are a-changin'

Summer of 69 is okay

This article was really well written. I liked the style quite a bit.

Indeed it must have been!
I was born in an era where computers were already something, but the internet itself was developing.
Now you have all kinds of stuff online and millions of apps.
It is growing so fast!

I want to learn how to develop and program stuff but I feel so little! haha
So much knowledge. And the hardware improvements as well!

This remembers me of Alan Turing's movie where he makes the first machine to interpret, discard and pick specific information.
I might not be talking too clearly but man!
The digital evolution is so damn fast compared to any other.

We are living this transition but how long will it take?
It scares me sometimes since I look around and see people delve inside their cellphones, texting and chatting and interacting. Yes, it is true, but to what extent?
None of that mushy critics but indeed the warmth beneath us is getting more and more binary within each passing day.