A review by feoh
Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe by George Dyson
4.0
Ultimately, this is a very good book. The only thing keeping it from being a great book is the author's almost messianic fascination with the role cellular automata and its ilk played in the digital computing revolution, and the role the results of that revolution is playing in society.
I realize this might seem counterintuitive, but the religiosity that comes through in Dyson's meandering ruminations on the ramifications of the history he is recounting do not, in my opinion anyway, actually lend itself to a proper telling of this story.
That said, there is an awful lot to recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in computing, past, present, or future, or even for anyone who can appreciate the monumental engineering achievements Von Neumann's team enacted.
I am still awe struck by some of the hardships they endured and overcame - like the fact that solid state memory didn't exist at the time, so they had to use CRT tubes as stored memory - the instant between when electrons painted an image onto the surface of a CRT and the next when it faded before the next refresh were JUST enough to impart a zero or a one. That concept alone is mind boggling to me.
One area in which this book does an excellent job is exploring the incredible connections between the development of the stored matrix digital computer and that of the hydrogen bomb, charting a path for the reader through the tempestuous times, personalities and organizations that culminated in the successful detonation of one of the most fearsome weapons ever created by human kind.
On point I am very glad to have read this book. There were definite moments of frustration where I found myself wishing that Mr. Dyson would spend less time prostrate at the altar of digital life and more detailing the technical challenges involved, but the net result was still an incredibly rewarding experience.
I learned an enormous amount from this book, and that alone makes it priceless and really worth reading, even if it at times frustrated me :)
I realize this might seem counterintuitive, but the religiosity that comes through in Dyson's meandering ruminations on the ramifications of the history he is recounting do not, in my opinion anyway, actually lend itself to a proper telling of this story.
That said, there is an awful lot to recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in computing, past, present, or future, or even for anyone who can appreciate the monumental engineering achievements Von Neumann's team enacted.
I am still awe struck by some of the hardships they endured and overcame - like the fact that solid state memory didn't exist at the time, so they had to use CRT tubes as stored memory - the instant between when electrons painted an image onto the surface of a CRT and the next when it faded before the next refresh were JUST enough to impart a zero or a one. That concept alone is mind boggling to me.
One area in which this book does an excellent job is exploring the incredible connections between the development of the stored matrix digital computer and that of the hydrogen bomb, charting a path for the reader through the tempestuous times, personalities and organizations that culminated in the successful detonation of one of the most fearsome weapons ever created by human kind.
On point I am very glad to have read this book. There were definite moments of frustration where I found myself wishing that Mr. Dyson would spend less time prostrate at the altar of digital life and more detailing the technical challenges involved, but the net result was still an incredibly rewarding experience.
I learned an enormous amount from this book, and that alone makes it priceless and really worth reading, even if it at times frustrated me :)