George Dyson

George Dyson (born 1953) is an author and historian of technology whose publications broadly cover the evolution of technology in relation to the physical environment and the direction of society. He has written on wide topics that include the history of computing, the development of algorithms and intelligence, communication systems, space exploration, and the design of water craft. Lecturing widely at academic institutions, corporations, and high-tech conferences, Dyson gives a historical context to the evolution of technology in modern society and provides thought-provoking ideas on the directions in which technology, such as the Internet, might develop. Dyson was a visiting lecturer and research associate at Western Washington University's Fairhaven College and was Director’s Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, in 2002-03. He is a frequent contributor to the Edge Foundation.

In the years after WWII and the Russian launch of two sputniks, Americans were searching for any technology that would give them dominance in the space race. In his latest, Dyson (Darwin Among the Machines) charts the history of the failed Project Orion, which called for a massive rocket to be built atop a nuclear-powered piston. The project's physicists and engineers, buoyed by the thrilling idea of traveling through space on "pulse technology," conducted a number of explosive experiments to ascertain the abilities of such a system (which reveals how little was actually known about the bombs being produced by the world's superpowers). Meanwhile, the project, started in 1957, ran headlong into detractors Kennedy and NASA included and eventually was canceled. Much of the technical information in the Orion files remains classified, but Dyson's explanations of the nuclear science behind the system are lucid. A great strength of Dyson's project is the interviews he conducted with surviving Orion team members among them his father, Freeman Dyson affording readers an intimate view of the story's central characters (and its government contractors) who helped shape Orion. At the same time, these compelling interviews drag on; the story's drama is diffused by the musings of its key players, who sometimes crowd out the dynamic background of the Cold War, Wernher Von Braun's chemical rocket program, atmospheric weapons test bans and presidential administrations vested in nuclear capacities only designed for destruction. Illus. and photos.