CHM Revolutionaries: Turing's Cathedral- Author George Dyson with Museum CEO John Hollar

This is an episode of REVOLUTIONARIES, a co-production of the Computer History Museum and KQED television, with major sponsorship by Intel. Recorded: March 7, 2012. Broadcast date: January 11, 2013

Legendary historian George Dyson vividly re-creates the scenes of focused experimentation, incredible mathematical insight, and pure creative genius that gave us computers, digital television, modern genetics, models of stellar evolution—in other words, computer code.

In the 1940s and '50s, a group of eccentric geniuses—led by John von Neumann—gathered at the newly created Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Their joint project was the realization of the theoretical universal machine, an idea that had been put forth by mathematician Alan Turing. This group of brilliant engineers worked in isolation, almost entirely independent from industry and the traditional academic community. But because they relied exclusively on government funding, the government wanted its share of the results: the computer that they built also led directly to the hydrogen bomb. George Dyson has uncovered a wealth of new material about this project, and in bringing the story of these men and women and their ideas to life, he shows how the crucial advancements that dominated twentieth-century technology emerged from one computer in one laboratory, where the digital universe as we know it was born.

Join John Hollar for a captivating conversation with Dyson about John von Neumann and the beginnings of the digital universe.

Watch the full lecture at    • CHM Revolutionaries: Turing's Cathedr...