Today in History - November 17, 1970 - Invention of the computer mouse. In 1970, a U.S. patent was issued for the computer mouse - an “X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System” (No. 3541541). Doug Engelbart’s invention changed the way humans were to work with computers. The invention transformed computers from specialized tools for technologists to user-friendly computational systems that anyone can use. Engelbart and his colleagues called this invention the “mouse,” after its long tail-like cable. The first mouse was a simple hollowed-out wooden block, with a single push button on top, designed to select and manipulate text. The “mouse” was part of a larger project called the NLS (oN Line System) based on work at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), which allowed two or more users to work on the same document from different workstations. This work built on Engelbart’s overarching visions for augmenting human intellect, improvement infrastructure, co-evolution of artifacts with social-cultural language-practices, and bootstrapping. Christina Engelbart, Doug Engelbart’s daughter and co-founder of the Bootstrap Institute, maintains an in-depth biography of Engelbart and his inventions. I was struck by the vision, passion and humbleness inherent in this quote from the site: “He remains bewildered as to why it has taken so long for society to catch up to him. “The rate at which a person can mature is directly proportional to the embarrassment he can tolerate. I have tolerated a lot,” says Engelbart of his life. Reader’s Digest paid Engelbart $35 to publish that quote, more than he was paid for many of his revolutionary inventions.” Doug Englebart was awarded the National Medal of Technology in 2000.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on Doug Engelbart and the computer mouse. For related educational resources, visit the Computer Engineering Education, the Electrical Engineering Education or the Computer Science Education disciplinary communities.

Today in History - November 10, 1983 - Fred Cohen presented to a security seminar the results of his test on the first documented virus, created as an experiment in computer security.

The first virus in the wild was found earlier in 1981 on the Apple II, spread on floppy disks containing the operating system. The author of the Elk Cloner virus was Rich Skrenta, a ninth grade student at the time.

Created while he was studying for a PhD at the University of Southern California, Cohen was the first to demonstrate a working example on a computer system and present the results in a public forum. A year later, his research was published in a paper where he defined a virus as “a program that can ‘infect’ other programs by modifying them to include a … version of itself”.

This experiment in creating a hazard in order to prevent an even worse one provides an interesting case in computer privacy, security, responsibility and engineering ethics. A well designed virus can have a devastating effect on society, disrupting work, communications and causing billions of dollars in damages. Their success shows how interconnected human beings have become on the Internet and how dependent we have become on its stable operations.

See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on computer viruses and internet security. For more on related curricular programs and educational resources visit the Software Engineering Education, the Computer Science Education, the Information Systems Education or the Information Technology Education community sites. We also have an interdisciplinary community in Engineering Ethics Education.

Also on this day in history in 1903, Granville T. Woods, a famous black American inventor, received a patent for an “Electric Railway” (U.S. No. 729,481). Woods held numerous other patents relating to the electric railway, electrical devices, brakes, and telegraphy for railways.

The 2008 Premier Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Courseware was awarded today to Richard Anderson, Ruth Anderson, Natalie Linnell, Craig Prince and members of the development team from the University of Washington for Classroom Presenter.

The award was presented at the Premier Award Ceremony at the Frontiers in Education Conference, held this year in Saratoga Springs, New York. This year’s panel of judges comprised a diverse cross-section of experts in engineering education and interactive media. Sponsors of the award program are John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Microsoft Research and TechSmith.

Classroom Presenter is a Tablet PC-based interaction system that supports the sharing of digital ink on slides between instructors and students. As a tool, Classroom Presenter enables the flexible delivery of lecture content and can increase student engagement and understanding of material. When used as a presentation tool, Classroom Presenter allows the integration of digital ink and electronic slides, making it possible to combine the advantages of whiteboard style and slide-based presentation. The ability to link the instructor and student devices, and to send information back and forth provides a mechanism for introducing active learning into the classroom and creates additional feedback channels.

Richard Anderson is a professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington and also serves as Associate Chair of educational programs. He won the 2007 UW Faculty Innovator for Teaching Award. Ruth Anderson teaches Computer Science at the University of Washington.  Natalie Linnell and Craig Prince are both PhD students at University of Washington working on educational technology with Richard Anderson.

The Premier Award competition, hosted by the NEEDS/Engineering Pathway digital libraries, is open to a wide range of submissions of “high-quality, non-commercial courseware designed to enhance engineering education.” Submissions for 2009 are due by July 17, 2009, and the Premier Courseware of 2009 will be announced at the Frontiers In Education Conference to be held October 18-21 in San Antonio, Texas.  More details on the Premier Award and current and previous winners can be found on the Engineering Pathway at: http://www.engineeringpathway.org/ep/premier/

The Engineering Pathway (www.engineeringpathway.org) is a portal to high-quality teaching and learning resources in applied science and math, engineering, computer science/information technology and engineering technology, for use by K-12 and university educators and students. Engineering Pathway is the engineering education “wing” of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) at www.nsdl.org.

Today in History - October 18, 1962 - Watson, Crick, and Wilkins receive Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA as a double helix. They first proposed their model for the structure of DNA in 1953. As this model was composed of two right-handed, antiparallel, polynucleotide chains coiled around a common axis it is sometimes referred to as the  double helix. They received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1962 “for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material”.

Rosalind Franklin’s work was pivotal in the development of the understanding the structure of DNA as well. She discovered the existence of the A and B forms of DNA and her X-ray crystallographies clearly showed x-ray diffraction patterns of DNA. Alas Rosalind Franklin died of cancer in 1958 at the young age of 37, possibly due to expose to the X-rays she worked with. Watson, Crick and Wilson only recently credited her contributions as key to the development of their model of DNA. Many have speculated that sexism was the reason for not giving her more credit earlier. Regardless, Nobel Prizes are never awarded posthumously so this would not have changed the names on the 1962 award.

Today, women make up over 50% of the medical school students and women students are reaching parity in bioengineering and biomedical engineering as well - yet they are still less than 10% of the medical and engineering faculty. A recent study of the National Academies titled Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering found unintentional biases were a major contributor to the low number of women on our science and engineering faculties. Women face barriers to hiring and promotion in research universities in many fields of science and engineering — a situation that deprives the United States of an important source of talent as the country faces increasingly stiff global competition in higher education, science and technology, and the marketplace. Eliminating gender bias in universities requires immediate, overarching reform and decisive action by university administrators, professional societies, government agencies, and Congress. The report was motivated by former Harvard President Larry Summers’ speculation that the low numbers of women in science and engineering are because women don’t want to work hard enough and that there may be a biological basis. His discounted discrimination as a tertiary factor.

See the Engineering Pathway’s Bioengineering / Biomedical Engineering Community site or our resources on Rosalind Franklin, Engineering Diversity site and our resources on gender equity.

Also on this date, October 18, 1955, the antiproton is discovered. See our related resources on antimatter.

Today in History - October 14, 1947 - First supersonic flight. The research program that led to this accomplishment started in 1946 by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) [now National Aeronautics and Space Administration], the Army Air Forces, and Bell Aircraft Inc. They built two XS-1 experimental research aircraft to conduct pioneering tests at what is now  the Edwards Air Force Base in California. The goal of the testing was to obtain flight data on conditions in the transonic speeds.

It took another two decades before supersonic flight went commercial. This happened on December 31, 1968 when The Russian TU-144 became the first commercial supersonic airliner flown. Building on their supersonic military jets, the Russians developed the first supersonic commercial airliner called the Tupolev 144. Later the U.K. developed the Concorde supersonic passenger jet. Athough successful as a collaborative technical effort, it did not survive the marketplace; it was too expensive to maintain, demand was not high enough at the prices required and the public put many constraints on flight paths due to the noise pollution of the sonic boom.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on supersonic flight and aerospace engineering. Curricular resources and events can be found on the Aerospace Engineering Education, Engineering Mechanics Education and Mechanical Engineering Education community sites.