It’s a pleasure to marvel at these remarkable minds and the great changes they set in motion. But the reverse of the story is sobering. Dyson shows that von Neumann’s government-funded invention of the computer was inextricably linked to the development of both the atomic and hydrogen bombs. You see, the mathematics that made possible the architecture of computers was also the mathematics that would simulate the consequences of thermonuclear fusion. The moral costs then, Dyson estimates, of IAS’s discovery of our digital universe are as enigmatic as Johnny von Neumann himself, a mentally superhuman mathematician who died at the age of only 54. The cause was bone cancer, which, some speculate, was derived from his attendance at the 1951 Bikini nuclear tests. (via “Turing’s Cathedral”: Gods of the digital universe – Nonfiction – Salon.com)