True on Babbage - he was about 100 years before his time, and his work was pretty much forgotten until the later advent of electronics. But Turing? Sure, he was persecuted, and killed himself at a young age, but in the time he had he did invent most of the theoretical basis of computation. A book I was reading the other day had a great quote about him (in reference to the concept of Turing machines and computability): ``In this, as in most areas, Turing had both the first and last word.''
Jim Baird
---------
It seems to me there is a lot of what, nationalistic blather going on here? Obviously these systems were tossed back and forth, so scoring firsts is a strange game. BTW, was the book you mentioned Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind?
In any event, here are a couple of more names to put on the list: John Von Neumann and C.E. Shannon. Von Neumann for sets and boolean algebras and their applications to physics (the bomb and the computer), and Shannon for transforming Boolean logic into electrical circuit designs or digital switching circuits.
But in general Rob Schaap makes the best point:
``What I do like about this thread is the news that packet switching (UK Post Office), Internet (US DoD) and the WWW (Mark's champion of the commons) were all innovations that took place outside the market. The very market that now takes the credit for innovation in general and these technologies in particular!''
Yeah, let's not forget that Capital is the biggest leach of them all. After destroying physics and mathematics, it is now set to work on biology, food, health and reproduction. I take that as a serious threat to everything living thing on the planet. This is more or less what annoys me most about the silly exchange between the Prince and Squire Dawkins. Both of them are missing the point. It ain't about rational science versus spiritual nature, but about US capital uber alles.
Chuck Grimes