Electronic Computer Project

Avi Wigderson, Herbert H. Maass Professor in the School of Mathematics, was named by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) as the recipient of the 2023 ACM A.M. Turing Award, often referred to as the "Nobel Prize of Computing."

The rising prominence of artificial intelligence continues to blur the lines between human and machine. An exhibition currently on display at the Institute reveals that, since its founding, IAS has been a key space for the testing and contesting of these boundaries.

This year, UPS Foundation Professor Wendy Brown will lead the Institute’s School of Social Science theme seminar on the politics of climate crisis. In her own words, Brown describes the theme seminar as an investigation of the emergent politics that...

By David Nirenberg, Director and Leon Levy Professor: 

"Unlike his much more famous colleague Albert Einstein, John von Neumann is not a household name these days, but his discoveries shape the possibilities of life for every creature on this planet."

"The first modern-style code ever executed on a computer was written in the 1940s, by a woman named Klára Dán von Neumann–or Klári to her family and friends. And the historic program she wrote was used to develop thermonuclear weapons. This season, we peer into a fascinating moment in postwar America through the prism of Klári’s work. We explore the evolution of early computers, the vital role women played in early programming, and the inextricable connection between computing and war."

"Just as there are von Neumann machines and von Neumann algebras, there are von Neumann anecdotes. Here’s a well-worn favorite. Late in the 1940s, years after he left Hungary for the United States and became a lionized mathematician, John von Neumann met a group of Rand Corporation scientists who wanted to use a computer he’d helped design."

"In 1953, at the dawn of modern computing, Nils Aall Barricelli played God. Clutching a deck of playing cards in one hand and a stack of punched cards in the other, Barricelli hovered over one of the world’s earliest and most influential computers...