The River of Computer Science
When did rules for manipulating symbols become executable machines?
From Leibniz's binary through Boole, Babbage, Lovelace, Hilbert, Gödel, Turing, to von Neumann.
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What changed between the cities?
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1703–1750
scholars and schools
HannoverParisLeibniz's Binary System
Leibniz showed how nonnegative integers could be written with zero and one and published binary arithmetic in the Paris Academy’s proceedings in 1703. Modern digital computing also depends on later logic, switching, electronics, and engineering.
Explication de l’Arithmétique Binaire (1703, Mémoires de l’Académie des sciences)Place this segment on the map - 2
1854–1900
scholars and schools
LincolnCorkBoole — Logic as Arithmetic
George Boole, a largely self-educated professor at Queen’s College Cork, published *The Laws of Thought* in 1854 and developed an algebraic treatment of logical relations.
The Laws of Thought (1854, Cork) and Boolean algebraPlace this segment on the map - 3
1920–1931
scholars and schools
GöttingenViennaGöttingen to Vienna — Hilbert and Gödel
Against the background of Hilbert’s 1920s program, Gödel’s 1931 incompleteness theorems exposed limits to the goals that program pursued.
Hilbert’s program and the incompleteness theoremsPlace this segment on the map - 4
1936–1945
scholars and schools
CambridgePrincetonTuring to EDVAC — Models of Computation Meet Stored Programs
Turing’s 1936 model of computation met stored-program ideas developed by several engineers and mathematicians. Working computers emerged from theory, circuits, memory, and team design—not one person or one document.
On Computable Numbers and the First Draft of a Report on the EDVACPlace this segment on the map
How to read the lines
Each line is an editorial route through problems, texts, and practices. It does not imply one book moving in a straight line, a sole invention, or identical adoption everywhere.