Out of Their Minds: Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists by Dennis Shasha
Imagine living during the Renaissance and being able to interview that era's greatest scientists about their inspirations, discoveries, and personal interest. 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...The 15 scientists whose work is profiled in the book have each made significant contributions to a part of the creation of the modern files of computer science. Some of the scientists are well-known: Donald Knuth, Alan Kay, Danny Hillis; others worked in areas of algorith development, computation, computer architecture, and design. Among the scientists are seven Turing Award winners, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize.