Websites

Visit the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) site to read “Electronic Computer Project,” a historical account of the IAS computer and von Neumann’s role in developing the machine. Then read George Dyson’s article, “An Artificially Created Universe: The Electronic Computer Project at IAS,” in which the science historian eloquently explains the origins of the IAS computer alongside other computing developments of the time. The article is excerpted from Dyson’s recently published book Turing’s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe.

Videos

If you’ve been sufficiently entranced by Dyson’s elegiac prose, take a look at a recent hour-long lecture he gave at IAS, titled “The First Five Kilobytes are the Hardest: Alan Turing, John von Neumann, and the Origins of the Digital Universe at IAS.” He discusses the process of writing the book, then traces Turing, von Neumann, and others’ involvement in developing the “digital universe” at IAS.