If you are familiar with the concept of "hypertext", then most likely you have already heard about the hero of our story. This is Ted Nelson - philosopher, sociologist, one of the pioneers in the world of information technology. Let's get acquainted with his projects, life story in more detail.
Who is he - Ted Nelson?
Theodor Holm Nelson celebrated his 80th birthday this year - the scientist was born on May 17, 1937. This American sociologist and philosopher is best known to the world as the inventor of the term "hypertext" and a number of similar concepts of the information sphere, the creator of the Xanadu system. He also worked on the ZigZag structure, XanaduSpace. He, a "literary romantic and idealist" (as he calls himself), is also considered the "second father of the hypermedia" after Vannevar Bush.
The term "hypertext", which brought him popularity, was first proclaimed by Ted Nelson in 1962 and used in print in 1965. He is also the author of such well-known and widespread concepts today as "hypermedia", "teledildonics", "hypermedia" and so on.
The main goal of Ted Nelson's work is to make computers understandable to ordinary people. He said that the interface of this device should be so logical that even in a critical situation, a beginner could figure out what was what within 10 seconds.
Ted Nelson, whose photo we presented in the article, has a negative attitude towards HTML, XML and browser systems created on the basis of his invention. He stated that HTML is what he and his team were trying to prevent when they created Xanadu. However, let's talk about everything in order.
Biography of T. Nelson
Theodore Nelson was born in New York, USA. His father is Grammy Award-winning director Ralph Nelson and his mother is Academy Award-winning Hollywood actress Celeste Holm.
From childhood, he tried to understand the essence of things, the relationship between them. At the same time, Theodore did not do very well at school. Then Ted Nelson continued his studies at Swarthmore College, graduating with a Bachelor of Philosophy. Already in high school, he was engaged in the publication of his school essays. Looking ahead, we also note that Nelson holds an MA in Sociology (1963) and a PhD in Media and Management (2002).
Then Ted enters the sociology department at Harvard University. There he was also fascinated by computer courses for the humanities. So much so that he chooses a specific information processing system as the topic of his graduation assignment, which would allow the writer to comparetexts of your compositions, change them, and then return to earlier variations.
In 1965, Ted Nelson's first biography was published, where he talked about relatively related data, and also used the term "hypertext" for non-linear documents for the first time.
Project Xanadu
Xanadu is an unfinished project that Theodore Nelson has dedicated over 30 years of his life to. He took such an unusual name from the mystical poem by S. Coleridge Kubla Khan. There Xanadu is the fabulous possession of the Mongol Khan, where Marco Polo stayed for 12 years. Namely, Nelson gave this name to his creation, because he wanted to emphasize that he creates such a system, a magical place where nothing will ever be forgotten.
Xanadu is a text search and storage system whose main elements are relationships and "windows". The document in it is a fundamental unit. With the help of "windows" from it, you can draw a route to any other. Thus, during use, more and more connections appear, "windows" between documents, which expands the entire system, allows it to evolve.
As evidenced by the films about Ted Nelson, the ultimate goal of his work is to bring absolutely all world literature online! However, the project was not completed for the reason that it turned out to be incapable of either existence or development. T. Nelson fought for many years to justify the right to life of his creation, but in vain.
Xanadu and WWW
Let the bravethe Xanadu project was not widely used, but it was he who inspired the creators of the WWW to develop their brainchild, as Tim Berners Lee himself, the inventor of the World Wide Web, admits.
In fact, the WWW was the implementation of Nelson's plans, but the scientist, as we mentioned, underestimates this project. In particular, he disapproves of the ever-changing nature of this network. And he bluntly says that the "World Wide Web" is something that he never wanted to allow in his work.
Theodor Holm Nelson's current activities
After Xanadu, the programmer starts work on a new information structure called "Zig Zag". Today he is more engaged in philosophy, is a professor at Oxford University. He worked at the Japanese universities of Hokkaido and Sapporo, where he was the head of the laboratories for the study of hyperstructures.
Also, Ted Nelson continues to work in the field of information technology, computers, various user interfaces. At one of the conferences in 2000, he announced that the first fragments of the code of his Xanadu project appeared in the public domain.
T. Nelson Awards
Ted Nelson received his first award for his project in 1998 at the 17th World Wide Web Consortium Conference held in Australia. It was the Yuri Rubinsky Memorial Award.
In 2001 he was knighted in France as "Officer of Letters and Arts". In 2004, Theodore Nelson was named a College ManWadham in Oxford.
So we got acquainted with the life of an amazing man of his time - Ted Nelson. In addition to being the recognized "father" of the term "hypertext", the famous programmer also became famous for the Xanadu project, to which he devoted a considerable part of his life. It is to this creation that we owe something when we already so habitually go to the World Wide Web, look at various sites, "surf" the links.
