George Dyson and the Birth of the Digital Universe (Rebroadcast)

Historian George Dyson on his new book "Turing's Cathedral," which tells the story of the Electronic Computer Project. Led by the brilliant polymath John Von Neumann in 1940s and 1950's, the project laid the groundwork for much of modern computing. In doing so, Dyson says, it birthed a new, digital ecosystem, a world of self-reproducing, ever-evolving numbers that may be said to have a life of their own. Dyson is the son of famed physicist Freeman Dyson and grew up at the Institute for Advanced Study, where Von Neumann and crew did their pioneering work.