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<p>Dear SIGCIS members,<br>
</p>
<p>I'm a freelance writer/journalist who's published in multiple
news outlets on hacktivism and who's lurked on this email list for
some time. The past several months, I've been reading a great
dealing about Alan Turing and the math behind <i>Computable
Numbers</i> (fundamental theorem of arithmetic, G<span>รถ</span>del
encoding, etc). A fairly straightforward question occurred to me,
one I hope this list can help answer:<br>
</p>
<p>As is well known, Turing's 1936 paper <i>Computable Numbers</i>
invented the concept of a universal machine, which includes what
today would be called an airgapped computer. For quite a while,
all computers (universal machines) were airgapped devices. The
historical casual chain is clear: first the idea documented in <i>Computable
Numbers </i>came into existence, and only later are physical
computers actually built, initially as standalone, airgapped
devices.<br>
</p>
<p>But how did plugging computers into one another with wires/cables
begin? Did a thinker first conceive of a profound idea
underpinning wired/cabled networking, and then only later,
engineers implemented that concept in the physical realm? Or, did
people first begin hooking computers up to one another, perhaps
experimentally, and then a theorist subsequently created an idea
to describe/frame what was happening (maybe a mathematical graph
theory or something)?</p>
<p>To put it another way, in terms of a simple standardized
test-like verbal analogy, <i>Computable Numbers</i> is to
airgapped computers as ??? is to wired/cabled networking of
computers.<br>
</p>
<p>I omit wireless connections (e.g., Bluetooth) for the time being.</p>
<p>Thanks much,</p>
<p>Doug Lucas<br>
</p>
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