The Computing Universe

Computers now impact almost every aspect of our lives, from our social interactions to the safety and performance of our cars. How did this happen in such a short time? And this is just the beginning. . . . In this book, Tony Hey and Gyuri Pápay lead us on a journey from the early days of computers in the 1930s to the cutting-edge research of the present day that will shape computing in the coming decades. Along the way, they explain the ideas behind hardware, software, algorithms, Moore's Law, the birth of the personal computer, the Internet and the Web, the Turing Test, Jeopardy's Watson, World of Warcraft, spyware, Google, Facebook, and quantum computing. This book also introduces the fascinating cast of dreamers and inventors who brought these great technological developments into every corner of the modern world. This exciting and accessible introduction will open up the universe of computing to anyone who has ever wondered where his or her smartphone came from.

Tony Hey is Vice President of Microsoft Research and has published over 150 research papers on particle physics, computer science and multi-disciplinary eScience. He is the co-author, with Ian Aitchison, of the graduate textbook Gauge Theories in Particle Physics (4th edition) and co-editor of Richard Feynman's Lectures on Computation. He is also co-author of popular science books on quantum mechanics and relativity, The New Quantum Universe and Einstein's Mirror. Most recently, he co-edited The Fourth Paradigm, a book about eScience and the new era of data-intensive science.

Gyuri Pápay is a senior research fellow at the IT Innovations Centre at Southampton University, UK. His main research interests are high-performance computing, event simulation and numerical algorithms.