There is no
Nobel Prize for mathematics. As a result there is no convenient slot to
slip in rewards for developments in computing. In any case, many
mathematicians look down on computing in spite of the fact that some
important mathematicians have made seminal contributions to the
computing field. One example of a famous mathematician turned computer
expert is John
von Neumann. Along with Alan
Turing von Neumann was responsible for many of the seminal ideas on
computer structure. In mathematical economics he developed the
concepts of game theory. While a great innovation, game theory may have
been too thin for a Nobel Prize. In any case von Neumann died more than
ten years before the economics prize was created. Another mathematician
who has been honored through his connection with economics is John
Nash. Riveting descriptions of Nash's battle with schizophrenia
have been descibed in Nasar's A
Beautiful Mind and the Academy
Award movie based on Nasar's book.
Herbert
Simon the 1978 Nobel laureate in economics, was a person deeply
interested in computing. He came to Carnegie
Mellon (then Carnegie Tech) in 1949 a year after Nash received his
undergraduate degree there. Simon is the poster child for high school
students who don't know what they want to do. Since Simon didn't know
what to study he did everything. This was in the same mold as von
Neumann. By the time I arrived at Carnegie Simon, with Allen Newell,
had built a fine computer center that we used for our physics work.
Unfortunately the center was pushing an off-brand compiler called GATE.
We had to use this at the cyclotron at the same time we worked in
Fortran at Brookhaven.
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Great science
often develops at the boundary of our knowledge or at a fault line
between totally different areas. Cosmology and particle physics are
illustrations of the first case, computing is an illustration of the
second. Modern computing is very much driven by technologies such as
the transistor invented by Shockley,
Bardeen, and Brattain and the integrated circuit developed by Jack
Kilby. Without these Nobel Prize winners there would be no modern
computers. (Parentehtically, John Bardeen's son, Bill Bardeen
is an emminent theoretical physicist at Fermilab known for his
contributions to the study of quantum anomalies and axions.)
For a decade I was responsible for technology transfer at Fermilab.
During that time the three biggest developments with some links to
Fermilab technology may have been industrial scale superconductivity,
TV stereo, and the World Wide Web. Our database of technology contains
many entries on superconductivity. The TV stereo patent was obtained
outside of work by two employees. About the most we did there was to
leave them alone and grant one of them a leave of absence. The third
was the World Wide Web. This was invented by our sister laboratory CERN
but
we quickly became deeply committed. However there are no entries in the
Fermilab technology database. Tim Berners-Lee and
the World Wide
Web have changed the world. I feel that networking is an emergent
science somewhat like economics. It may be soft but there are important
things to be learned. Berners-Lee will not receive a Nobel Prize but
the world now knows he is there (30.7 millions hits on Google about
April 13, 2006).
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