Out of their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists

Imagine living during the Renaissance and being able to interview that era's greatest scientists about their inspirations, discoveries, and personal interests. The latter half of our century has seen its own Renaissance--informations technology has changed irrevocable the way we live, work, and think about the world. We are fortunate, therefore, that the authors of Out of Their Minds have been able to talk so candidly with the founders of computer science....

Over the past fifty years, most of computer science's important inventions have come from innovators who aren't exactly household names. Out of Their Minds describes the lives and discoveries of fifteen unsung computer scientists whose programs have done everything from help engineers manage factories to help cartoonists animate their characters. This well-paced book spans the varied disciplines of computer science and challenges the reader to think about still-unsolved questions: how can we build a computer that works like the human brain, how can we boost the speed of computation, and where all that intelligence and power will take the industry over the next fifty years.