Vannevar Bush

: "My whole philosophy is very simple: If I have any doubt as to whether I am supposed to do a job or not, I do it, and if someone socks me, I lay off." -- VannevarBush

: "If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we would not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability."

American engineer and physicist, 1890-1974. While he directed the ManhattanProject, Bush is possibly more discussed these days for his article AsWeMayThink from 1945. AsWeMayThink's prediction of the future of "knowledge work", the MemexVision, was highly prescient of aspects of the present-day, and future, PersonalComputer and InterNet; more, it helped to bring them about, partly through the major influence it had on DougEngelbart's program of AugmentingHumanIntellect.

Short bio here: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Bush-Van.html
Another : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush

A complete biography of Bush is: Zachary, G. Pascal, Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century, Free Press, New York, 1997, ISBN:0-262-74022-2

VannevarBush's Differential Analyser, an analog computer that could solve differential equations with as many as 18 independent variables, can be seen in action in a couple GeorgePal movies:

Destination Moon (screenwriter RobertHeinlein)
When Worlds Collide