{"product_id":"turings-cathedral-the-origins-of-the-digital-universe-9781400075997","title":"Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e Best Business Book of 2012\u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book of 2012\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this revealing account of how the digital universe exploded in the aftermath of World War II, George Dyson illuminates the nature of digital computers, the lives of those who brought them into existence, and how code took over the world. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the 1940s and '50s, a small group of men and women--led by John von Neumann--gathered in Princeton, New Jersey, to begin building one of the first computers to realize Alan Turing's vision of a Universal Machine. The codes unleashed within this embryonic, 5-kilobyte universe--less memory than is allocated to displaying a single icon on a computer screen today--broke the distinction between numbers that \u003ci\u003emean\u003c\/i\u003e things and numbers that \u003ci\u003edo\u003c\/i\u003e things, and our universe would never be the same. \u003ci\u003eTuring's Cathedral \u003c\/i\u003eis the story of how the most constructive and most destructive of twentieth-century inventions--the digital computer and the hydrogen bomb--emerged at the same time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eGeorge Dyson\u003c\/b\u003e is a science historian as well as a boat designer and builder. He is also the author of \u003ci\u003eBaidarka\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eProject Orion\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eDarwin Among the Machines\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50676169802002,"sku":"9781400075997","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_c589bea8-0377-4ab7-90f6-c5245dbe97a3.jpg?v=1733876847","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/turings-cathedral-the-origins-of-the-digital-universe-9781400075997","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}