Search results for ""Author George Dyson""

George Dyson's fascinating account of the early years of computers: Turing's Cathedral is the story behind how the PC, ipod, smartphone and almost every aspect of modern life came into being.In 1945 a small group of brilliant engineers and mathematicians gathered at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, determined to build a computer that would make Alan Turing's theory of a 'universal machine' reality. Led by the polymath émigré John von Neumann, they created the numerical framework that underpins almost all modern computing - and ensured that the world would never be the same again.George Dyson is a historian of technology whose interests include the development (and redevelopment) of the Aleut kayak. He is the author of Baidarka; Project Orion; and Darwin Among the Machines.'Unusual, wonderful, visionary' Francis Spufford, Guardian'Fascinating . . . the story Dyson tells is intensely human . . . a gripping account of ideas and inventionFascinating . . . the story Dyson tells is intensely human . . . a gripping account of ideas and invention' Jenny Uglow'Glorious . . . as much a story of the personalities involved as of the discoveries they made, and you do not need any knowledge of computers or mathematics to enjoy the ride . . . a ripping yarn' John Gribbin, Literary Review

Read more less

A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020How did we end up in a world where humans coexist with technologies we can no longer fully control or understand?George Dyson plots an unexpected course through the past 300 years to reveal the hidden connections that underpin our digital age, ending with a premonition of what lies ahead. From an eighteenth-century Russian voyage across the North Pacific, to the mirror signals that heralded the age of digital telecommunications and the invention of the vacuum tube, Analogia interweaves historical adventure with scientific insight in a deeply personal story that frames the pursuit - and cost - of the digital revolution in a captivating new light.

Read more less

'Full of historical anecdotes . . . but this is much more than a history book. [George Dyson] weaves his threads together for a purpose. Using voices of the past and present, he describes a fresh and sometimes startling viewpoint of the emerging relationship between nature and machines. From vignettes about Olaf Stapledon, George Boole, John von Neumann, and Samuel Butler, a larger story develops in which the twin processes of intelligence and evolution are inseparably intertwined' Danny Hillis, Wired

Read more less