Cryptonomicon

by Neal Stephenson

Lawrence had supposed that the machine must be at least as complicated as the most intricate fugue that could be played on it. Now he had learned that a machine, simple in its design, could produce results of infinite complexity.

Automata theory

Bulgarian professor named John Vincent Atanasoff and his graduate student, Clifford Berry, who were building a machine that was intended to automate the solution of some especially tedious differential equations.

First analog computers

“What came out of P.M., which was terrifically radical, was the ability to say that all of math, really, can be expressed as a certain ordering of symbols.”

symbolism is the heart of ai

“Well what about pi, then? You can’t have a stick that’s exactly pi inches long.”

The paradox of finite representation for pi in the circle and its infinite value

“Also I dreamed last night that a zeppelin was burning.”

this explains the mysterious scene I was having difficulty with.