In the twenties, banks and companies in Germany began taking pictures of incoming and rejected checks on microfilm in order to curb the rampant check fraud. At Zeiss Ikon, the chemist Emanuel Goldberg devised a search device using image points that act as an index to each image on the microfilm (35 mm film) were also saved. This “statistical machine” was patented as a “device for searching for statistical and accounting information”, but it was never built in series. Goldberg presented the working machine at the “VII International Congress of Photography”, which 1931 took place in Dresden. According to the speed of the film projector used, it could 22 check photos per Browse second. In the same year, IBM secured the US rights to the patent.

In this section we always present astonishing, impressive, informative and funny figures from the fields of IT, science, art, economy, politics and of course mathematics on Tuesdays.

Finding the correct check When Emanuel Goldberg demonstrated his “statistical machine”, he was no stranger. Zeiss Ikon’s technical director was at the height of his fame. Finally, the VII. International Congress of Photography had recognized and adopted the method developed by him and his doctoral supervisor Robert Luther for determining film speed as DIN 4512. At the previous congress in Paris, Goldberg caused a sensation when he awarded his invention of the microdot with a 0 , 03 mm large micrate recording presented by Nicéphore Niepce . He calculated that the amount of text from 45 Bibles in microns to 6, 35 Square inches could fit. He thus provided the template for Richard Feynman’s lecture “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”.

The principle of “statistical Machine “is what the library scientist and Goldberg biographer Michael Buckland described here, the picture of a replica of the machine can be found in the blog of the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum. For each microfilmed check, an index is punched into the film as a dot pattern. If a specific check is searched for, a search mask is generated with the dot pattern and placed behind the light source of the film projector. When the film is unwound, a photocell is used to check whether the dot pattern on the search mask matches the pattern on the film strip. Then the film stops, the photo of the check you are looking for is found.

Goldberg’s invention is the first search engine of its kind. The American Vannevar Bush built a similar invention with the microfilm Rapid Selector for Eastman Kodak and National Cash Register. The patenting of the selector failed because the patent by Goldberg and Zeiss Ikon was rated as “prior art”. Bush adopted some of the ideas for the construction of his hypertext system called Memex, which is considered the first search engine in the USA.

Only successful, then the escape The 1881 Emanuel Goldberg, born in Moscow, studied chemistry in Moscow, Königsberg, Leipzig and Göttingen. He did his doctorate 1881 with Robert Luther with a photo-chemical work, which 1910 led to the invention of the densograph. It was followed 1910 the development of the Goldberg gray wedge. At that time he became 1906 Head of the Photomechanical Duplication Process Department at the Royal Academy of Graphic Arts and book trade in Leipzig. 1911 he was appointed professor. During the First World War, as a civilian, he constructed aerial cameras for German reconnaissance. 1917 Goldberg became a board member of the International Camera Actiengesellschaft (ICA) in Dresden. When ICA merged with the companies Ernemann, Goerz and Contessa 1926 to Zeiss Ikon AG, Goldberg remained on the board. In addition to working with microfilm, he constructed the Kinamo film camera, with which the genre of documentary film experienced an important technical advance.

1933 Goldberg was arrested and kidnapped by the SA, but was released after the intervention of board members and fled with his family to Paris, where he managed Zeiss subsidiaries for four years. 1937 the Goldbergs emigrated to Palestine, where Emanuel Goldberg founded a laboratory for electro-optical devices. 1942 He succeeded in inventing the Goldberg refractometer. Connected to his name are the Goldberg condition for the correct reproduction of brightness and hue when copying films and the Goldberg emulsion for microscope photography. Goldberg died on 13. September 1970 in Tel Aviv. The Dresden Technical Collections manages his estate.

(mho)