An important point I forgot to mention is that the Claude Shannon book shows the important connection of Shannon and Vannevar Bush - Bush introduced Shannon to many key people, and was thus hugely responsible for Shannon's impact on the world. I will be anxious to read the Bush book's perspective on this relationship, and about Bush's work with FDR. Brian On Thu, Sep 3, 2020 at 11:49 AM Brian Berg <brianberg@gmail.com> wrote:
I loved *A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mind_at_Play>* by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman.
I got inspired to read it after seeing *The Bit Player* - a film that I described in a posting to this list on Aug. 3, 2019. I have now seen it a second time at the Ashland, Oregon Independent Film Festival which was online this year. After the screening, the 2 authors and the filmmaker were part of an online interactive chat that was partly similar to the live discussion following the screening a year ago. It was great to see the film both before and after reading the book. A good friend (Alex Magoun) who is on the IEEE History Committee is credited in the Acknowledgments section with helping the book editing process "immeasurably."
I also thoroughly enjoyed Leslie Berlin's Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age <https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Troublemakers/Leslie-Berlin/9781451651515> which profiles 7 key people. It bounces around re: their contributions as time progresses in the book from the 1970s until the early 1980s. Like the Robert Noyce bio by her noted earlier in this thread, it was well researched and fun to read. I was delighted when an event that I organized about the history of Atari was attended by her and included in a couple of the book's entries about Al Alcorn. Two of the seven who are profiled are women: Sandra Kurtzig <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Kurtzig>, the first woman to take a technology company public, and that company (ASK Group) was the first to truly productize software; and Fawn Alvarez <https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4796871/rolm-fawn-alvarez>, who rose from the ROLM factory line to its executive suite.
BTW, a good resource for finding old books like these is abebooks.com - I just ordered a copy of the Vannevar Bush book discussed earlier in this thread.
Also, here is what I posted to this list last year after seeing the Claude Shannon film for the first time: I saw a screening last night of *The Bit Player* at the Computer History Museum (CHM) in Mtn. View, CA USA. It was quite an impressive film. Interviews with Shannon, including an extensive one in the early 1980s at his home, formed the basis of much of the film by way of a key one being reproduced using actors. John Hutton played Shannon - he has extensive acting chops on stage (including as King Lear; some info here <https://cupresents.org/2016/02/24/john-hutton-returns-csf/>) and on film (various, including a small part in Spielberg's *Lincoln* as Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner). It was a brilliant way to tell Shannon's story as it portrayed his in-person eccentricities - and there is no significant actual footage of this aspect of Shannon. This was accompanied by interesting animations and discussion of his seminal paper and famous Master's thesis in order to convey the gravity of his importance, along with portions of the 1952 “Theseus” Maze-Solving Mouse film <http://cyberneticzoo.com/mazesolvers/1952-%E2%80%93-theseus-maze-solving-mouse-%E2%80%93-claude-shannon-american/>. The film was concluded with just-discovered brief footage of Shannon juggling on a unicycle - that was fantastic to see!
More info, presented in an excellent and sophisticated fashion, is at www.TheBitPlayer.com <http://www.thebitplayer.com/> The panel who discussed the film after the screening (including Writer/Producer/Director Mark Levinson) noted that there would be a screening of the film in San Francisco in September. I do not know where else it will be shown in the future. The website shows the CHM screening as the film's third. It's the quality of film that I could easily and eagerly watch a second time even as soon as next month. Do study the website as it is brilliantly executed.
This was the first documentary film funded by the IEEE Foundation, and it was done in conjunction with the IEEE Information Theory Society (ITS). BTW, the ITS is the only IEEE society whose "basis" has a definitive starting date - the 1948 publication of Shannon's *A Mathematical Theory of Communication <http://math.harvard.edu/~ctm/home/text/others/shannon/entropy/entropy.pdf>* . _________________________ Brian A. Berg / bberg@StanfordAlumni.org Berg Software Design - LinkedIn Profile <https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianaberg/> 14500 Big Basin Way, Suite F, Saratoga, CA 95070 USA Voice: 408.741.5010 / Cell: 408.568.2505 Consulting: Flash Memory/USB/Storage/Patents visit the Storage Cornucopia: www.bswd.com FMS Technical Chair: www.FlashMemorySummit.com IEEE Milestone <http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:List_of_IEEE_Milestones> Coordinator & History Chair for Region 6 <http://www.ieee-region6.org/> IEEE SCV Section <http://www.ieee.org/scv/> Past Chair / IEEE-CNSV <http://www.CaliforniaConsultants.org> Board Director IEEE Silicon Valley Tech History Committee <http://www.SiliconValleyHistory.com/> Chair
On Thu, Sep 3, 2020 at 11:17 AM Jeffrey Yost <yostx003@umn.edu> wrote:
Hi Troy,
Bill Aspray's *John von Neumann and the Origins of Modern Computing*, a deeply insightful and path breaking work of scholarship, in large part a biography, and much more. Andrew Hodges *Alan Turing: The Enigma*. Leslie Berlin's *The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley* is a great bio on this influential physicist, engineer, and entrepreneur in IT. (And sticking with the Fairchild, Intel and Silicon Valley theme...) Arnold Thackray, David Brock, and Rachel Jones' *Moore's Law: The Life of Gordon Moore, Silicon Valley's Quiet Revolutionary*. Agree what others have said on Waldrop's *The Dream Machine*, an excellent book by this top science journalist. And I very highly recommend Hunter's excellent biography on Herbert Simon.
Best, Jeff
The Man behind the Microchip : Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley *"Injustice wears the same harsh face wherever it shows itself."*-Ralph Ellison
Jeffrey R. Yost, Ph.D. Director, Charles Babbage Institute Research Professor, Program in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
222 21st Avenue South University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN 55455
612 624 5050 Phone 612 625 8054 Fax
On Thu, Sep 3, 2020 at 6:31 AM Troy Astarte <Troy.Astarte@newcastle.ac.uk> wrote:
Dear SIG-CIS,
What is your favourite biography of a scientist or mathematician? I’m particularly interested in modern subjects and those who worked in computing/computer science. Ideally the book would cover the subject’s work in a reasonable level of technical detail as well as their life and the broader context in which they lived and worked.
I ask because I am considering applying for funding for an essentially biographical project on a computer scientist and I would like to read some (more) biographies first.
Best,
Troy Astarte
School of Computing Newcastle University
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_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org