Fan belts only exist, briefly, in the intervals between stars

Sunday 10th January 2016 10:28 GMT keithpeter

Nils

I'd agree that this book is an excellent and intellectually satisfying read, and I approve of the idea of reviewing books a few years after their publication - that helps people discover things that might be new to them once the initial marketing/PR push by the publishers stops.

I'm less interested in the fan-belt side of things (although I found that interesting in the book) and more into the mathematics. Through Dyson's work I found out about Nils Aall Barricelli. This eccentric and independently wealthy scientist working on the cusp of biology and mathematics managed to wander unscathed through a world war and was able to get time on the Princeton computer to run his 'digital life' experiments. This chap was close to cellular automata but probably lacked the mathematical tools to explore those. He was also working before the RNA/DNA transcription process was known. Amazing.

More on the link below...

http://nautil.us/issue/14/mutation/meet-the-father-of-digital-life

Coat: sunny day: off out.

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1. Sunday 10th January 2016 10:47 GMT Destroy All Monsters
  
  Re: Nils
  
  Nautilus is really an amazing magazine. Every paper issue is a work of art in itself and there are no addies. I don't know how they do it.
  
  I recently came across a short biography of Walter Pitts, which I had only so far seen mentioned in a textbook on Neural Networks and maybe in a book by Marvin Minsky.
  
  Also, this review reads like it has been written by "jake", how come?
  
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Sunday 10th January 2016 11:43 GMT MondoMan

Good job!

This review is one of the most enjoyable articles I've read here recently -- hope it's a harbinger of the new & improved Reg.

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1. Monday 11th January 2016 01:02 GMT Lysenko
  
  Re: Good job!
  
  Agreed, though it might have been better if the relevance of all this to hyperconverged storage clusters had been focussed on more explicitly. To keep the article "on topic" as it were.
  
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Sunday 10th January 2016 11:56 GMT Efros

Excellent!

The two Dysons are a highly intellectually entertaining duo. They both have an enthusiasm for their work which is infectious. Dyson junior's book on Project Orion, a project his father was heavily involved with, (Project Orion:The True Story Of The Atomic Spaceship, the BBC doc based on this can be found on Youtube) is a must read, I haven't got round to Turing's Cathedral yet but based on this review and others it's only a matter of time.

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1. Sunday 10th January 2016 13:56 GMT JeffyPoooh
  
  Re: Excellent!
  
  'Turing's Cathedral' is now on my wish list.
  
  This is indeed an 'excellent' book review by GR, in the sense that it should put off many potential readers/purchasers of this book on the Used Book market, except the few people interested in the intricacies of vacuum tube logic circuit design. Hopefully the price of good-used copies will drop down by half over the coming weeks or months.
  
  Thank you Geoffrey.
  
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  1. Sunday 10th January 2016 20:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: Excellent!
    
    "except the few people interested in the intricacies of vacuum tube logic circuit design"
    
    Isn't everybody?
    
    Well, everybody who matters, anyway.
    
    Put down that humane killer, kids, I aten't dead yet.
    
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  2. Monday 11th January 2016 20:47 GMT Terry Cloth
    
    Remember the library!
    
    I've reserved it at my local library. Actually, at my local consortium of libraries. When you've run out of bookshelf space and money, as I have, the library is a marvellous place, especially now that they've got online catalogs. Check something out, it encourages them.
    
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Sunday 10th January 2016 13:08 GMT Anonymous Coward

6J6

That brought back memories - I did a lot with 6J6es as a kid - and I found my old valve box only to discover there wasn't a single one left because, of course, they had all died on active service. An amazingly useful little valve that could make simple radio receivers, headphone amplifiers, logic circuits and even very small ~~illegal transmitters~~ inadequately shielded signal generators. They were available dirt cheap in the 60s, much cheaper than the expensive ECC8* series. What's more, you could safely power things off a 90V battery, just using a 6V transformer for the heaters. Home electronic projects that glowed - those were the days.

I still have a 6AL5 double diode and a load of B7G pentodes. Perhaps I should leave a note for my descendants to sell the collection on eBay.

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1. Monday 11th January 2016 00:45 GMT Pompous Git
  
  Re: 6J6
  
  That brought back memories - I did a lot with 6J6es as a kid
  
  I became a convert to solid state devices after pulling a spark off the anode of an 807. It blew a hole through my thumb! My memories are of Thomas Roddam's Transistor Amplifiers for Audio Frequencies that I read with much enjoyment on my way to Australia in 1965. My fellow passengers were bemused, but tolerated my eccentricity as I had a portable record player; it was the only one on the ship. Listening to Beatles for Sale and Them's first single bring it all back.
  
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Sunday 10th January 2016 13:35 GMT Ru'

"As those these are good things. Clearly, Dyson, who lives in the Pacific Northwest..."

Should this read "As though these are good things"?

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1. Monday 11th January 2016 09:33 GMT Martel The Scanner
  
  I'm the guy who wrote the piece. Please note that The Register's editers and proff reeders decided for themselves where paragraph breaks, exclamation points and (parenthetical phrases) should and should not be. Their choices are not necessarily my choices, but I'm so flattered that they'd publish this thing that I dasn't pick nits.
  
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Sunday 10th January 2016 13:42 GMT JeffyPoooh

"It’s a piece of the sun."

Not *the* Sun, but perhaps some previous star which exploded in the distant past.

And there must be at least a small fraction of any fan belt that are primordial atoms from the Big Bang.

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1. Sunday 10th January 2016 14:20 GMT RIBrsiq
  
  Re: "It’s a piece of the sun."
  
  "Not *the* Sun".
  
  This.
  
  Also: not just the fan belt, but almost everything else that makes up the planet. Including us! We are, very literally, star dust.
  
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  1. Tuesday 12th January 2016 02:12 GMT JeffyPoooh
    
    Re: "It’s a piece of the sun."
    
    RIBrsiq channeled Carl Sagan, "We are....star dust."
    
    Yeah, we know. Many of us will have watched Cosmos in 1980.
    
    A few years ago, I watched the entire original series (DVD box set, laptop) while crossing the Pacific. It was simply glorious. Only one tiny interruption was me saying 'Chicken' to the lovely flight attendant's inquiry about dinner. It was night for some of the 15+ hour flight, and there were 'billions and billions' of stars out my window. Lifetime memory.
    
    Cheers.
    
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Sunday 10th January 2016 16:32 GMT W Donelson

Wonderful review

Thank you

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Monday 11th January 2016 00:53 GMT Stuart Dole

Canoes

I greatly enjoyed Ken Brower's book about George Dyson "The Starship and the Canoe" - so I'm inspired to read this one! Thanks...

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Monday 11th January 2016 05:06 GMT a_yank_lurker

General Hugh Mercer?

I have not yet read the book, but will soon. I am curious how an American Revolutionary War general figures in a book about computers. The only connection this native Princetonian can make is Princeton, NJ, where the Battle of Princeton took place, is in Mercer County - named after the highest ranking American general killed in the battle; Hugh Mercer.

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Monday 11th January 2016 09:16 GMT jimmyj

vacuum - not just for space !

Ah... 'bottles' - still have several boxes of them - 'for replacement purposes only' ha.

the venerable 6J6 morphed into three flavors of dual triode = the 12 AX,AT&AU 7 s,

that had identical pin-outs and differing transconductances. I still have the 'bible' -

a very thick red Radiotron Designers Handbook by yep... RCA. As a long time bass

player, I and many others swear by Fender amplifiers for their glorious sound. The

AX as preamp & the AT as phase inverter driving a pair of 6L6s for output. amusing

that ~ 1952 I built my first radio using a ooh..! 'semiconductor' !!! before transistors !!

yep.. a 'crystal set'. look ma - no battery ! long antenna though. thanks for the review.

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Monday 11th January 2016 13:23 GMT Paul Smith

Good Job?

Was your write up on the valve issue and Bigelows part in it (which made up over half the article) cut and pasted from the book or just interesting(?) fun facts that you felt like sharing? It would be more appropriate as part of an article on computer history or old technology, but it has no place in a book review, don't you think?

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