The Wubi Effect

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 43.5K Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2020

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When we think of China today, we think of a technological superpower. From Huawei and 5G to TikTok and viral social media, China is stride for stride with the United States in the world of computing. However, China’s technological renaissance almost didn’t happen. And for one very basic reason: The Chinese language, with its 70,000 plus characters, couldn’t fit on a keyboard.

Today, we tell the story of Professor Wang Yongmin, a hard headed computer programmer who solved this puzzle and laid the foundation for the China we know today.

This episode was reported and produced by Simon Adler with reporting assistance from Yang Yang.

Special thanks to Martin Howard. You can view his renowned collection of typewriters at: antiquetypewriters.com

Support Radiolab today at Radiolab.org/donate.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, I'm Chad Abumarad. This is Radio Lab to start things off today.
0:23.3	A couple months ago, in that magical, forgotten time before the coronavirus, our reporter
0:32.3	Simon Adler somewhat mysteriously walked me a few blocks from our office, Mike in
0:39.3	Hand, to a coffee shop.
0:40.9	Okay, with our coffee purchased, let's go stand in the corner where it's maybe a little
0:44.2	less loud.
0:45.2	Sort of a fancy one, expose brick, bare Edison bulbs.
0:48.8	So let's gaze out upon the hipsters of Lower Manhattan.
0:53.4	Survey and count the number of laptops.
0:56.4	Yeah, so how many laptops do you think are in here?
0:58.5	I go, okay, starting from the left, we're going to circle around, we got one, two, three,
1:02.9	four, five, six.
1:04.6	Two more on the phone.
1:05.6	Two more on the phone.
1:06.6	Two more on the phone.
1:07.6	And they're all typing the same way, right?
1:10.1	They're all using a Quarty keyboard.
1:12.3	Yeah, yes.
1:14.0	And the reason he dragged me there, as I now know, now let's imagine we're in Shen
1:18.5	Gen in a Chinese Starbucks.
1:21.5	Was to point out a massive cultural difference hidden in plain sight and to propose a bit
1:27.0	of a reporting trip.
	...

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