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Semyon Nikolaevich Korsakov (russian: Семён Николаевич Корсаков, ) (14 January 1787 – 1 December 1853 OS) was a Russian government official, noted both as a homeopath and an inventor who was involved with an early version of
information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system ...
.


Biography

Korsakov was born in 1787 in what is now Kherson,
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(then part of the
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). His father was a military engineer. The family had migrated from Lithuania in the 14th century. He was married to Sofia Mordvinova and they had four daughters and six sons, one of whom, Mikhail Semyonovich (russian: Михаил Семёнович Корсаков, ) (1826–1871), became famous in his own right as governor-general of Eastern Siberia and was the namesake of the town of Korsakov in
Sakhalin Oblast Sakhalin Oblast ( rus, Сахали́нская о́бласть, r=Sakhalínskaya óblast', p=səxɐˈlʲinskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast) comprising the island of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in the Rus ...
and several Russian geological features. From 1812 to 1814, Semyon Korsakov took part in the
Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
with the Russian Army. He later was to serve as an official in the statistics department of the Russian Police Ministry in St. Petersburg. He was a recipient of the Order of St. Anna and the
Order of St. Vladimir The Imperial Order of Saint Prince Vladimir (russian: орден Святого Владимира) was an Imperial Russian order established on by Empress Catherine II in memory of the deeds of Saint Vladimir, the Grand Prince and the Baptizer ...
. Korsakov died in 1853 in the village of Tarusovo, then part of the
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.


Homeopathy

Though Korsakov was not formally trained as a doctor, he was interested in medicine, possibly because of the difficulty in getting medical care in the rural area where he lived. According to his journals he treated several thousand patients, at first using conventional medicine, but in 1829 switching to
homeopathy Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a di ...
at the urging of his relatives. Korsakov is noted in homeopathic circles as the originator of the Korsakovian method of dilution, which differed from the
Hahnemann Hahnemann is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Elizabeth Cuthill, née Elizabeth Hahnemann (1923–2011), American mathematician * Helga Hahnemann (1937–1991), East German actress * Marcus Hahnemann (born 1972), American ...
ian dilutions used by (and named for) homeopathy's founder in that it used a single container for a series of dilutions rather than a new container for each. Korsakov also used dilutions higher than those previously used (30C and higher). Dilutions made using his method are commonly designated with the letter "K", e.g. 15K.


Inventions

While working in the statistics department of the Police Ministry, Korsakov became intrigued with the possibility of using machinery to "enhance natural intelligence". To this end, he devised several devices which he called "machines for the comparison of ideas".Intellectual machines
These included the "linear homeoscope with movable parts", the "linear homeoscope without movable parts", the "flat homeoscope", the "ideoscope", and the "simple comparator". The purpose of the devices was primarily to facilitate the search for information, stored in the form of punched cards or similar media (for example, wooden boards with perforations). Korsakov announced his new method in September 1832, and rather than seeking patents offered the machines for public use. The punch card had been introduced in 1805, but until that time had been used solely in the textile industry to control looms. Korsakov was reputedly the first to use the cards for information storage. Korsakov presented his ideas to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, but their experts rejected his application, failing to see the potential of mechanizing searches through large stores of information. His machines were largely forgotten until after the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, when a revival of historical interest resulted in the publication (in 1961) of several documents from the academy's archives relating to Korsakov's machines and the uncovering of a book about them written by Korsakov himself.


Notes


References

*Povarov G.N
Semen Nikolayevich Korsakov. Machines for the Comparison of Philosophical Ideas.
In: Trogemann, Georg; Ernst, Wolfgang and Nitussov, Alexander
''Computing in Russia: The History of Computer Devices and Information Technology Revealed''
(pp 47–49), Verlag, 2001. Translated by Alexander Y. Nitussov. ,
Semen Korsakov's inventions
Cybernetics Dept. of MEPhI
Semen Korsakov’s brochure
of 1832 (translated from the French). Ed. by Alexander Mikhailov , 2009
С.Н. Корсаков
World of Homeopathy (Мир Гомеопатии) {{DEFAULTSORT:Korsakov, Semen 1787 births 1853 deaths Russian homeopaths Russian inventors Russian statisticians Russian military personnel of the Napoleonic Wars People from Kherson Recipients of the Order of St. Anna Recipients of the Order of St. Vladimir Russian computer scientists