George Dyson (science historian)

George Dyson ( born 1953 in Ithaca, New York) is an American historian of science and technology as well as non-fiction author.

Life

George Dyson was born in 1953 as the son of the mathematician Freeman Dyson and Verena Huber- Dyson, and the grandson of the English composer George Dyson. His sister is Esther Dyson. At the age of sixteen he left home to live on the coast of British Columbia in a tree house. He devoted himself to the construction of Baidarkas, the traditional kayak Unangan, and founded a company that makes Baidarka kayaks. Along with his book Baidarka the kayak, this led to the resurgence of Baidarka kayaks.

The relationship with his father, George Dyson is portrayed in the book The Starship and the Canoe by Kenneth Brower.

He is the author of several books about topics in the field of history of science and philosophy of technology. In the book, Darwin Among the Machines, he put forward the theory that the Internet is a conscious beings. For his book on the Orion project, where his father developed a nuclear- powered spaceship, he managed to collect so much material that NASA approached him to almost 2000 pages copies for sale of works that are no longer in their own archive were found.

He has worked as a consultant and philosopher in the field of digital technologies today. He lectures for example, the Institute for Advanced Study or at the TED conference.

Works

• Baidarka the Kayak. Alaska Northwest Books, 1986. ISBN 0-88240-315- X. ( Eng.: fascination Baidarka. history, development and rebirth of the Aleutian kayaks Tourist Guide, ISBN 3-924415-11-0 Hannover 1989. . )
• Darwin Among the Machines. Allan Lane Science, 1998 ISBN. 0-7382-0030-1. ( Eng.: Darwin in the realm of machines: .. evolution of global intelligence Springer, Wien 2001, ISBN 3-211-83588-1. )
• Project Orion: The Atomic Spaceship 1957-1965. Allan Lane Science, 2002. ISBN 0-7139-9267-0.
• Turing 's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe Pantheon, 2012 ISBN 0-375-42277-3.