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Show Former PI. Grove man to do odometer study v V llp'" 1 If III ft;,. .. i Norman E. Wright, a 1943 graduate of Pleasant Grove High School and an associate professor of computer science at BYU, has received a fellowship to study the historical background of early western odometers - distance measuring devices that are actually forerunners of today's computers. He will use the $1,500 grant from the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at BYU to do research this academic year in the prestigious Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif., where one of the finest collections of western history is available to authorized researchers. resear-chers. Wright plans to identify more precisely the part the odometer played in early western history and to dispel the myth that the Mormon pioneer odometer of 1847 was the first odometer to be invented. "When the results. of this investigation in-vestigation are published, the Mormon pioneer instrument will be seen more clearly for what it really was - an outstanding piece of pioneer ingenuity and engineering rather than a new invention," Wright says. In his collection, he has two beautifully preserved and engineered odometers: one built in France in the late 1700s and one built in England in the middle 1880s. The Mormon pioneers built theirs of wood, installing it on a wagon near North Platte, Neb., as the first wagon train was heading west. Wright's interest in the odometer has carried him to the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the Franklin Institute and Princeton University Library. He has presented papers on the topic, including in-cluding one to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "Books on the history of science and technology have largely ignored the odometer," he observes. ob-serves. "A definitive history does not exist. The role the odometer played in America's westward expansion is not widely known, even among experts in the field of western history." He is working on a book about the complete history of this ancient instrument. He has also written several articles for professional and lay journals. Wright, a son of the late Clifford L. and Oral Wright of Pleasant Grove, received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from BYU in 1951 after serving two years in the Army Signal Corps during World War II. Upon graduation, he joined General Electric's Rotational Training Program at the Hanford Atomic Products Operation in Richland, Wash. A three-month assignment in the company's computer operations launched him into a career in computers. He served as a programmer and later as an analyst with responsibility respon-sibility for the development and programming of data processing systems used in atomic reactor operation and plutonium production. produc-tion. After directing the design and implementation of numerous business-oriented computer applications, ap-plications, he joined the BYU faculty in 1963 and became heavily involved in the installation of the university's first large-scale computer system. He has also taught numerous computer science courses. Norman E. Wright s because it often ' disguised as hard work K |
