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The cover of Turing's Cathedral

Turing's Cathedral

George Dyson

How did a small group of engineers in Princeton build the machine whose design shaped nearly every computer since?

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At a glance

Author
George Dyson

Why read it

  • You will understand the idea at the heart of every computer: that numbers can both mean things and do things
  • You will see how a breakthrough can come from outsiders working outside industry with government backing
  • You will learn why credit for an idea is often tangled and never fully settled

Who it is for

  • Programmers curious where computers truly came from
  • Readers of science history who like people and ideas
  • Engineers wanting a story of a small team building something big

Contents

  1. PREFACE
  2. POINT SOURCE SOLUTION
  3. PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. Olden Farm
  7. THREE
  8. Veblen’s Circle
  9. FOUR
  10. Neumann János
  11. FIVE
  12. MANIAC
  13. SIX
  14. Fuld 219
  15. SEVEN
  16. 6J6
  17. EIGHT
  18. V-40
  19. NINE
  20. Cyclogenesis
  21. TEN
  22. Monte Carlo
  23. ELEVEN
  24. Ulam’s Demons
  25. TWELVE
  26. Barricelli’s Universe
  27. THIRTEEN
  28. Turing’s Cathedral
  29. FOURTEEN
  30. Engineer’s Dreams
  31. FIFTEEN
  32. Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata
  33. SIXTEEN
  34. Mach 9
  35. SEVENTEEN
  36. The Tale of the Big Computer
  37. EIGHTEEN
  38. The Thirty-ninth Step
  39. KEY TO ARCHIVAL SOURCES

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