Turing’s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe

Abstract

Legendary historian and philosopher of science GeorgeDyson vividly re-creates the scenes of focusedexperimentation, incredible mathematical insight, andpure creative genius that gave us computers, digitaltelevision, modern genetics, models of stellarevolution--in other words, computer code. In the 1940sand '50s, a group of eccentric geniuses--led by Johnvon Neumann--gathered at the newly created Institutefor Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Theirjoint project was the realization of the theoreticaluniversal machine, an idea that had been put forth bymathematician Alan Turing. This group of brilliantengineers worked in isolation, almost entirelyindependent from industry and the traditional academiccommunity. But because they relied exclusively ongovernment funding, the government wanted its share ofthe results: the computer that they built also leddirectly to the hydrogen bomb. George Dyson hasuncovered a wealth of new material about this project,and in bringing the story of these men and women andtheir ideas to life, he shows how the crucialadvancements that dominated twentieth-centurytechnology emerged from one computer in one laboratory,where the digital universe as we know it was born.