U.S. technological enthusiasm and British technological skepticism in the age of the analog brain

This article is a comparative analysis of the British and U.S. differential analyzers from 1930 to 1945. The author examines the development of the Vannevar Bush and D.R. Hartree analyzers in the context of the U.S. Engineering community and British scientific community, respectively. He argues that this practical machine was more readily and enthusiastically adopted by U.S. Engineers, while British scientists remained skeptical of the differential analyzer due to their theoretical professional style. As a result, Hartree was a “voice in the wilderness” in Britain, while Bush received extensive funding and had the support of an enthusiastic engineering environment