Turing's Cathedral

by George Dyson

  63. Marston Morse to Warren Weaver, January 15, 1946, RF.

  64. Samuel H. Caldwell to Warren Weaver, January 16, 1946, RF.

  65. John von Neumann to Lewis L. Strauss, October 20, 1945, IAS.

  66. John von Neumann to Lewis L. Strauss, October 24, 1945, IAS.

  67. Herman H. Goldstine, Memo to Mr. Fleming, April 20, 1951, IAS.

  68. James Pomerene, interview with Nancy Stern, September 26, 1980, CBI, call no. OH 31.

  69. J. Presper Eckert, interview with Nancy Stern, October 28, 1977, CBI, call no. OH 13.

  70. Stanley Frankel to Brian Randell, 1972, in Brian Randell, “On Alan Turing and the Origins of Digital Computers,” Machine Intelligence 7 (1972): 10.

  71. Klára von Neumann, The Computer, ca. 1963, KVN.

  SIX: FULD 219

  1. Abraham Flexner to Herbert Maass, December 15, 1937, IAS; Abraham Flexner to Louis Bamberger, December 1, 1932, IAS.

  2. Klára von Neumann, Two New Worlds.

  3. Abraham Flexner to Oswald Veblen, January 6, 1937, IAS; Abraham Flexner to Frank Aydelotte, August 7, 1938, IAS.

  4. James Hudson, Clouds of Glory: American Airmen Who Flew with the British During the Great War (Fayetteville and London: University of Arkansas Press, 1990), p. 34.

  5. Minutes of the Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Faculty, February 18, 1946, IAS.

  6. Bernetta Miller, quoted by Joseph Felsenstein, interview with author, March 20, 2007, GBD; Joseph Felsenstein, interview with author.

  7. Bernetta A. Miller, “Report on IAS Food Conservation,” May 17, 1946, IAS.

  8. Bernetta Miller to Frank Aydelotte, September 3, 1946, IAS; Bernetta Miller to Frank Aydelotte and J. Robert Oppenheimer, September 24, 1947; Bernetta Miller to J. Robert Oppenheimer, December 3, 1947, IAS.

  9. Bernetta Miller, quoted by Joseph Felsenstein, interview with author.

  10. Oswald Veblen, “Remarks on the Foundations of Geometry” (December 31, 1924), in Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 31, nos. 3–4 (1925): 141.

  11. Stanislaw Ulam, “Conversations with Gian-Carlo Rota” (unpublished transcripts by Françoise Ulam, compiled 1985), SFU.

  12. John von Neumann to Kurt Gödel, November 30, 1930, in Solomon Feferman, ed., Collected Works, vol. 5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 337.

  13. Ulam, Adventures of a Mathematician, p. 76.

  14. John von Neumann, remarks made at the presentation of the Einstein Award to Kurt Gödel at the Princeton Inn, March 14, 1951, VNLC.

  15. Kurt Gödel, “Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme I,” Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik 38 (1931), translated as “On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems I,” in Kurt Gödel, Collected Works, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 147.

  16. Frank Aydelotte to Dr. Max Gruenthal, December 5, 1941, IAS; Marston Morse, Minutes of the Meeting of the IAS School of Mathematics, February 14, 1950, IAS.

  17. A. M. Warren to Abraham Flexner, October 10, 1939, IAS.

  18. John von Neumann to Abraham Flexner, September 27, 1939, IAS.

  19. Kurt Gödel to Frank Aydelotte, January 5, 1940, IAS.

  20. Stan Ulam to John von Neumann, June 18, 1940, VNLC.

  21. Frank Aydelotte to Herbert Maass, September 29, 1942, IAS; Bernetta Miller to the Department of Motor Vehicles, June 4, 1943, IAS.

  22. Frank Aydelotte, Memo for the Standing Committee, December 25, 1941, IAS.

  23. Kurt Gödel to Earl Harrison, Department of Justice, March 12, 1942, IAS.

  24. Earl G. Harrison to Kurt Gödel, March 19, 1942, IAS; Frank Aydelotte to Benjamin F. Havens, March 21, 1942, IAS.

  25. Benjamin F. Havens to Frank Aydelotte, March 27, 1942, IAS.

  26. Alan M. Turing to Institute Secretary (Gwen) Blake, December 16, 1941, IAS.

  27. Frank Aydelotte to Max Gruenthal, December 5, 1941, IAS.

  28. Frank Aydelotte to Max Gruenthal, December 2, 1941, IAS; Max Gruenthal to Frank Aydelotte, December 4, 1941, IAS.

  29. Frank Aydelotte to the Selective Service Board, April 14, 1943, IAS.

  30. Cevillie O. Jones to Frank Aydelotte, April 20, 1943, IAS.

  31. Frank Aydelotte to the Selective Service Board, May 19, 1943, IAS.

  32. John von Neumann to Oswald Veblen, November 30, 1945, OVLC.

  33. “Notes on Kurt Gödel,” March 17, 1948, IAS.

  34. Kurt Gödel to J. Robert Oppenheimer, September 6, 1949, IAS.

  35. Stanislaw Ulam to Solomon Feferman, July 13, 1983, SUAP; John von Neumann to Oswald Veblen, November 30, 1945, OVLC.

  36. Arthur W. and Alice R. Burks, interview with Nancy Stern.

  37. Oswald Veblen to Frank Aydelotte, September 12, 1941, IAS.

  38. Frank Aydelotte, Appendix to the Report of the Director, February 24, 1941, IAS.

  39. Minutes of the Meeting of the Professors of the School of Mathematics, February 13, 1946, IAS; Arthur W. and Alice R. Burks, interview with Nancy Stern.

  40. Arthur W. and Alice R. Burks, interview with Nancy Stern.

  41. Arthur W. Burks, Herman H. Goldstine, and John von Neumann, Preliminary Discussion of the Logical Design of an Electronic Computing Instrument (Princeton, N.J.: Institute for Advanced Study, 1946), p. 53.

  42. Herman H. Goldstine to Colonel G. F. Powell, Office of the Chief of Ordnance, May 12, 1947, IAS.

  43. Norbert Wiener, “Back to Leibniz!” Technology Review 34 (1932): 201; Norbert Wiener, “Quantum Mechanics, Haldane, and Leibniz,” Philosophy of Science 1, no. 4 (October 1934): 480.

  44. G. W. Leibniz to Henry Oldenburg, December 18, 1675, in H. W. Turnbull, ed., The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol. 1 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1959), p. 401; G. W. Leibniz, supplement to a letter to Christiaan Huygens, September 8, 1679, in Leroy E. Loemker, trans. and ed., Philosophical Papers and Letters, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), pp. 384–85.

  45. G. W. Leibniz to Nicolas Remond, January 10, 1714, in Loemker, trans. and ed., Philosophical Papers and Letters, 2:1,063; G. W. Leibniz, ca. 1679, in Loemker, trans. and ed., Philosophical Papers and Letters, 1:342.

  46. G. W. Leibniz, ca. 1679, in Loemker, trans. and ed., Philosophical Papers and Letters, vol. 1, p. 344.

  47. G. W. Leibniz, 1716, Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese (translation of Lettre sur la philosophie chinoise à Nicolas de Remond, 1716), Henry Rosemont Jr. and Daniel J. Cook, trans. and eds., Monograph of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, no. 4 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1977), p. 158.

  48. G. W. Leibniz, “De Progressione Dyadica—Pars I” (MS, March 15, 1679), published in facsimile (with German translation) in Erich Hochstetter and Hermann-Josef Greve, eds., Herrn von Leibniz’ Rechnung mit Null und Einz (Berlin: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, 1966), pp. 46–47. English translation by Verena Huber-Dyson, 1995.

  49. Burks, Goldstine, and von Neumann, Preliminary Discussion, p. 9.

  50. John von Neumann and Herman H. Goldstine, “On the Principles of Large Scale Computing Machines,” talk given to the Mathematical Computing Advisory Panel, Office of Research and Inventions, Navy Dept., Washington D.C., May 15, 1946, reprinted in Collected Works, Vol. 5: Design of Computers, Theory of Automata and Numerical Analysis (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1963), p. 32.

  51. Julian Bigelow, interview with Nancy Stern.

  52. Martin Davis, The Universal Computer: The Road from Leibniz to Turing (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), p. 113.

  53. Kurt Gödel to Arthur W. Burks, n.d., in Burks, ed., Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata, p. 56.

  54. G. W. Leibniz to Rudolph August, Duke of Brunswick, January 2, 1697, as translated in Anton Glaser, History of Binary and Other Non-decimal Numeration (Los Angeles: Tomash, 1981), p. 31.

  55. Kurt Gödel to Marianne Gödel, October 6, 1961, in Solomon Feferman, ed., Collected Works, vol. 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 437�
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  SEVEN: 6J6

  1. Alice Bigelow, interview with author, May 24, 2009, GBD.

  2. Julian Bigelow, interview with Richard R. Mertz.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Julian Bigelow, interview with Walter Hellman, June 10, 1979, in Walter Daniel Hellman, “Norbert Wiener and the Growth of Negative Feedback in Scientific Explanation,” PhD thesis, Oregon State University, December 16, 1981, p. 148.

  5. Norbert Wiener, Ex-Prodigy, pp. 268–69; Julian Bigelow to John von Neumann, November 26, 1946, VNLC.

  6. Norbert Wiener to Vannevar Bush, September 21, 1940, in Pesi R. Masani, ed., Norbert Wiener, Collected Works, vol. 4 (Boston: MIT Press, 1985), p. 124.

  7. Norbert Wiener, “Principles Governing the Construction of Prediction and Compensating Apparatus,” submitted with S. H. Caldwell, Proposal to Section D2, NDRC, November 22, 1940, in Pesi R. Masani, Norbert Wiener: 1894–1964 (Basel: Birkhauser, 1990), p. 182.

  8. Norbert Wiener and Julian H. Bigelow, “Report on D.I.C. Project #5980: Anti-Aircraft Directors: Analysis of the Flight Path Prediction Problem, including a Fundamental Design Formulation and Theory of the Linear Instrument,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, February 24, 1941, pp. 38–39, JHB.

  9. Norbert Wiener, “Extrapolation, Interpolation, and Smoothing of Stationary Time Series, with Engineering Applications,” classified report to the National Defense Research Committee, February 1, 1942, declassified edition (Boston: MIT Press, 1949), p. 2.

  10. Norbert Wiener, I Am a Mathematician (New York: Doubleday, 1956), p. 243; Alice Bigelow, interview with author.

  11. Jule Charney, “Conversations with George Platzman,” recorded August 1980, in R. Lindzen, E. Lorenz, and G. Platzman, eds., The Atmosphere—A Challenge: The Science of Jule Gregory Charney (Boston, Mass.: American Meteorological Society, 1990), p. 47.

  12. Julian Bigelow, interview with Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman, October 30, 1999 (courtesy of Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman).

  13. Ibid.

  14. Julian Bigelow to Warren Weaver, December 2, 1941, JHB.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Julian Bigelow, interview with Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman.

  18. Ibid.

  19. Norbert Wiener, I Am a Mathematician, p. 249.

  20. George Stibitz, “Diary of Chairman, July 1, 1942,” in Peter Galison, “The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision,” Critical Inquiry 21, no. 1 (Autumn 1994): 243.

  21. Julian Bigelow, Arturo Rosenblueth, and Norbert Wiener, “Behavior, Purpose and Teleology,” Philosophy of Science 10, no. 1 (1943): 9 and 23–24.

  22. Warren S. McCulloch, “The Imitation of One Form of Life by Another—Biomimesis,” in Eugene E. Bernard and Morley R. Kare, eds., Biological Prototypes and Synthetic Systems, Proceedings of the Second Annual Bionics Symposium Sponsored by Cornell University and the General Electric Company, Advanced Electronics Center, Held at Cornell University, August 30–September 1, 1961, vol. 1 (New York: Plenum Press, 1962), p. 393.

  23. W. A. Wallis and Ingram Olkin, “A Conversation with W. Allen Wallis,” Statistical Science 6, no. 2 (May 1991): 124.

  24. Wiener, I Am a Mathematician, p. 243.

  25. Frank Aydelotte to Julian Bigelow, September 3, 1946, IAS.

  26. Verena Huber-Dyson, note for Julian Bigelow memorial, March 29, 2003, GBD.

  27. Willis H. Ware, interview with Nancy Stern.

  28. Julian Bigelow, interview with Nancy Stern.

  29. Ralph Slutz, interview with Christopher Evans, June 1976, CBI, call no. OH 086.

  30. Willis H. Ware, interview with Nancy Stern.

  31. Akrevoe Kondopria Emmanouilides, interview with author, January 22, 2004, GBD.

  32. Frank Aydelotte to John von Neumann, June 4, 1946, IAS.

  33. Julian Bigelow, interview with Richard R. Mertz.

  34. Bigelow, draft “Report on Computer Development at the IAS.”

  35. Willis H. Ware, interview with Nancy Stern; Willis H. Ware, “History and Development of the Electronic Computer Project,” p. 8.

  36. Willis H. Ware, interview with Nancy Stern; Ralph Slutz, interview with Christopher Evans; Bernetta Miller, “Electronic Computer Project Statement of Expenditures from Beginning November 1945 to May 31, 1946,” June 4, 1946, IAS.

  37. Ware, “History and Development of the Electronic Computer Project,” p. 8.

  38. Klára von Neumann, The Computer; Julian Bigelow, interview with Richard R. Mertz.

  39. Benjamin D. Merritt to Frank Aydelotte, August 29, 1946, IAS.

  40. Willis H. Ware, interview with Nancy Stern.

  41. Julian Bigelow, interview with Richard R. Mertz.

  42. Ibid.

  43. Herman H. Goldstine to John von Neumann, July 28, 1947, IAS.

  44. Frank Aydelotte to Herbert H. Maass, May 26, 1946, IAS; Klára von Neumann, The Computer.

  45. Arthur W. Burks, interview with William Aspray; Frank Aydelotte to H. Chandlee Turner, July 2, 1946, IAS.

  46. Frank Aydelotte to Colonel G. F. Powell, June 25, 1946, IAS.

  47. Julian Bigelow, interview with Richard R. Mertz; Willis Ware, interview with author.

  48. Willis Ware, interview with author.

  49. Morris Rubinoff, interview with Richard Mertz, May 17, 1971, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

  50. J. Robert Oppenheimer to John von Neumann, February 11, 1949, IAS.

  51. Jack Rosenberg, interview with author, February 12, 2005, GBD.

  52. Julian Bigelow, “Computer Development at the Institute for Advanced Study,” in Metropolis, Howlett, and Rota, eds., A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century, p. 293.

  53. Herman H. Goldstine to John von Neumann, July 19, 1947, IAS; Julian Bigelow, interview with Nancy Stern.

  54. Ralph Slutz, interview with Christopher Evans; Herman Goldstine, interview with Nancy Stern.

  55. Herman Goldstine, interview with Nancy Stern.

  56. Julian Bigelow, interview with Nancy Stern; Julian Bigelow, interview with Richard R. Mertz.

  57. J. H. Bigelow, J. H. Pomerene, R. J. Slutz, and W. Ware, “Interim Progress Report on the Physical Realization of an Electronic Computing Instrument,” Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J., January 1, 1947, p. 12.

  58. Ralph Slutz, interview with Christopher Evans.

  59. James Pomerene, interview with Nancy Stern; Bigelow, “Computer Development,” p. 309.

  60. Willis Ware, interview with author; Julian Bigelow, interview with Richard R. Mertz; Bigelow, “Computer Development,” p. 308.

  61. “Report on Tubes in the Machine,” February 8, 1953, IAS; Bigelow, “Computer Development,” p. 307.

  62. Bigelow, Pomerene, Slutz, and Ware, “Interim Progress Report,” pp. 82–83.

  63. Jack Rosenberg, interview with author.

  64. Jack Rosenberg, “The Computer Project,” unpublished draft, February 2, 2002.

  65. Ibid.

  66. Ralph Slutz, interview with Christopher Evans.

  67. Bigelow, Pomerene, Slutz, and Ware, “Interim Progress Report,” pp. 15–16.

  68. James Pomerene, interview with Nancy Stern.

  EIGHT: V-40

  1. Andrew and Kathleen Booth, interview with author, March 11, 2004, GBD.

  2. Ibid.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Herman Goldstine to John von Neumann, February 25, 1947, IAS; Andrew Booth to George Dyson, February 26, 2004.

  8. Marston Morse, Minutes of the Meeting of the Standing Committee, March 18, 1946, IAS.

  9. Frank Aydelotte, Minutes of the Meeting of the Standing Committee, June 27, 1946, IAS.

  10. Ibid.

  11. Frank Aydelotte, Report of the Director, October 18, 1946, IAS.

  12. Stanley C. Smoyer, Memorandum to the Trustees of the IAS, August 7, 1946, IAS-BS.

  13. Julian H. Bigelow to Frank Aydelotte, July 3, 1947, IAS.r />
  14. Bernetta A. Miller to Frank Aydelotte, September 19, 1947, IAS; Morris Rubinoff, interview with Richard Mertz.

  15. Freeman Dyson, comments at Julian Bigelow memorial, March 29, 2003.

  16. Morris Rubinoff, interview with Richard Mertz; Thelma Estrin, interview with Frederik Nebeker, IEEE History Center, Rutgers University, August 24–25, 1992.

  17. Gerald and Thelma Estrin, interview with author, April 14, 2005, GBD.

  18. James Pomerene, interview with Nancy Stern.

  19. Andrew D. Booth and Kathleen H. V. Britten, “General Considerations in the Design of an All-Purpose Electronic Digital Computer,” 1947, JHB.

  20. Bigelow, “Computer Development,” p. 297.

  21. James Pomerene, interview with Nancy Stern.

  22. John von Neumann to Marston Morse, April 1, 1946, IAS; Institute for Advanced Study Electronic Computer Project, Agreement Concerning Inventions, n.d., 1946, IAS.

  23. Julian Bigelow, interview with Nancy Stern; Abraham Flexner, “University Patents,” p. 325.

  24. Herman Goldstine to Bigelow, Hildebrandt, Melville, Pomerene, Slutz, Snyder, and Ware, June 6, 1947, IAS; Herman Goldstine to Patent Branch, Office of the Chief of Ordnance, May 10, 1947, IAS; Deposition of Arthur W. Burks, Herman H. Goldstine, and John von Neumann, n.d., June 1947, IAS.

  25. Julian Bigelow, interview with Nancy Stern.

  26. Ibid.

  27. I. J. Good, “Some Future Social Repercussions of Computers,” International Journal of Environmental Studies 1 (1970): 69.

  28. William F. Gunning, “Rand’s Digital Computer Effort,” Rand Corporation Memorandum P-363, February 23, 1953, p. 4.

  29. “Institute for Advanced Study Electronic Computer Project Monthly Progress Report: July and August 1947,” p. 2, IAS; “Institute for Advanced Study Electronic Computer Project Monthly Progress Report: February 1948,” p. 2, IAS.

  30. Bigelow, Pomerene, Slutz, and Ware, “Interim Progress Report,” p. 8; John von Neumann, Memorandum to Commander R. Revelle, Office of Naval Research, on the Character and Certain Applications of a Digital Electronic Computing Machine, October 21, 1947, VNLC.

  31. “Institute for Advanced Study Electronic Computer Project Monthly Progress Report, March 1948,” p. 2, IAS.

  32. “Institute for Advanced Study Electronic Computer Project Monthly Progress Report: April 1948,” p. 2, IAS; Jack Rosenberg, Memo to Julian Bigelow, April 10, 1950, IAS.