Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

by Petzold Charles

The title of Boole’s 1854 book suggests an ambitious motivation: Because the rational human brain uses logic to think, if we were to find a way in which logic can be represented by mathematics, we would also have a mathematical description of how the brain works. Of course, nowadays this view of the mind seems to us quite naive.

In the history of technology, simultaneous invention is more common than one might suspect.

It might be fun to argue over which method is better, but before you do so, be aware that the term Big-Endian comes from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and refers to the war between Lilliput and Blefuscu over which end of an egg to break before eating it.