| Description |
xii, 272 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 21 cm |
| Contents |
1. Leibniz's dream -- 2. Boole turns logic into algebra -- 3. Frege: from breakthrough to despair -- 4. Cantor: detour through in infinity -- 5. Hilbert to the rescue -- 6. Gödel upsets the applecart -- 7. Turing conceives of the all-purpose computer -- 8. Making the first universal computers -- 9. Beyond Leibniz's dream -- Epilogue |
| Summary |
Computers are everywhere today - at work, in the bank, in artist's studios, in our pockets - yet they remain to many of us objects of irreducible mystery. How can today's computers perform such a bewildering variety of tasks if computing is just glorified arithmetic? The answer, as Martin Davis lucidly illustrates, lies in the fact that computers are engines of logic. Their hardware and software embody concepts developed over centuries by logicians such as Leibniz, Boole, and Gödel, culminating in the amazing insights of Alan Turing. Readers will come away from this book with a revelatory understanding of how and why computers work |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Originally issued The universal computer : the road from Leibniz to Turing 2000 |
| Subject |
Computers -- History.
|
|
Electronic digital computers -- History.
|
| ISBN |
0393322297 paperback |
|
