The Fundamental Question

Backus. McCarthy. Kay. Dijkstra. Rabin. Knuth. Tarjan. Lamport. Cook. Levin. Brooks. Smith. Hillis. Feigenbaum. Lenat. Do any of these names sound familiar? To most people, probably not - yet, each of these names short-hands a pedantic search, an avant-garde idea, a progressive body of thought. Most started their work in the 1930s with a simple math problem. Their heads in the game and their minds focused, these men were very forthright in asking not whether or not it can be computed but how to do so most efficiently. The computer was both the starting point and the core of the problem, which “required writing instructions for a real machine, finding an efficient solution, building a better computer for bigger versions of the problem, and, sometimes, [boldly] asking the computer to participate in the creative process” (ix). When they started, they started with nothing, yet, “modern computing would be unrecognizable without their contributions” (x). This blog, with the help of Dennis Shasha’s and Cathy Lazere’s book Out of Their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists, will strive to examine the lives of 15 world-famous computer scientists – their interests, their questions, their environment, their discoveries, and their legacies. Just as the book, I will “try to explain the ideas and their importance without scientific jargon, so you need not have any special background, other than curiosity about how computing has evolved and how this special breed of scientists thinks” (x). Indeed, it will be a terrific journey through the history of computing. Enjoy!

Shasha, Dennis, and Cathy Lazere. Out of Their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists. New York, NY: Copernicus, 1995. Print.