Utente:Lydia Tuan/Roberto Busa: differenze tra le versioni

Versione delle 11:18, 16 mag 2019

Versione delle 11:33, 16 mag 2019

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In 1946, while writing his thesis at the [[Pontificia Università Gregoriana|Pontifical Gregorian University]], he worked on the idea of a timely and complete verification of [[Tommaso d'Aquino]]'s lexicon. The inspiration for his vast research came from an observation of this particular detail: in San Tommaso, the concept of "interiority" is present in the form ''essere in'' (literally 'to be in'); however "the recurrence of the particle ''in'' was not available in some of the concordances dedicated to d'Aquino's works of the time."

Father Busa decided to start his work over and handwrite 10,000 index cards. Then he realized that the task was too strenuous and started to look for an automatic machine that could analyze the entries<ref>{{Cita libro|autore=Roberto Busa|titolo=Quodlibet. Briciole del mio mulino|data=1999|editore=Spirali|città=Milano|pp=49-52|ISBN=8877705353}}</ref>. Amongst the various institutions he contacted included [[IBM]] of [[New York]]. In 1949, Busa met with its president [[Thomas J. Watson|Thomas Watson]], whom he convincingly asked to access the calculators (punched card machines), which Busa used to actualize the project. At [[Gallarate]], Busa set up a laboratory and began to examine, word by word, all of San Tommaso's texts. The work consisted of a lexicografical analysis of virtually nine million words that constituted the ''opera omnia'' of San Tommaso d'Aquino, with an additional two million words of other Latin authors. Father Busa created the method, terminology, and the procedure.

At the time, the only recording media were [[Scheda perforata|punch cards]]: Father Busa calculated that he had to print twelve million cards. He calculated the amount of space that the file would have occupied: 90 meters in width, 1.2 meters in height, and 1 meter in depth for a weight of approximately 500 metric tons. By the time he completed half of the work (six million cards), the [[Nastro magnetico|magnetic tape]] had been invented. Right away, Busa experimented new technological solutions passing from punch cards to magnetic tape (1800 pieces for a total length of approximately 1500 km).