Electronic Computer Project (ECP)

Starting in late 1945, John von Neumann, Professor in the School of Mathematics, and a group of engineers worked at the Institute to design, build, and program an electronic digital computer—the physical realization of Alan Turing’s Universal Machine, theoretically conceived in 1936. In the words of George Dyson, author of Turing's Cathedral, the stored-program computer broke the distinction between numbers that mean things and numbers that do things.

Mathematics

von Neumann's Electronic Computer Project: A Living Legacy

Chief Information Officer Jeff Berliner highlights the Institute for Advanced Study's remarkable technological legacy, which began with the Electronic Computer Project, led by John von Neumann, founding Professor in the School of Mathematics (1933–55).

Organization, Communication, and Decision

By Karen Clausen-Brown

The Institute Letter, Spring 2025

In the cognitive revolution, psychologists, recognizing that developments in information processing had potential for studying the human mind, sought for the first time to apply new ideas in early artificial intelligence, computer science, and neuroscience to psychology. The Institute, as the home of one of the first modern computers, was uniquely poised to serve as a hub for this nascent field of study.

The History and Mission of the Institute

By Robbert Dijkgraaf

Robbert Dijkgraaf, Director and Leon Levy Professor, gives a talk to incoming scholars on the history and mission of the Institute during Welcome Day on September 25, 2017.

Mathematics

Willis Ware: Last of the Original ECP Engineers

George Dyson

The Institute Letter Spring 2014

Willis Ware accepted a position with the Institute for Advanced Study’s Electronic Computer Project (ECP) on May 13, 1946, and began work on June 1. He was the fourth engineer hired to work on the project—and, at his death on November 22, 2013, was...

Julian Bigelow: Bridging Abstract Logic and Practical Machines

George Dyson

The Institute Letter Spring 2013

Julian Himely Bigelow, who joined the IAS Electronic Computer Project as Chief Engineer in March of 1946, was appointed to a Permanent Membership in the School of Mathematics in December 1950 and remained a Member of the School of Natural Sciences...

Mathematics

The Electronic Computer Project at IAS

George Dyson

The Institute Letter Spring 2012

There are two kinds of creation myths: those where life arises out of the mud, and those where life falls from the sky. In this creation myth, computers arose from the mud, and code fell from the sky.

The First Five Kilobytes are the Hardest

George Dyson

The history of digital computing can be divided into an Old Testament whose prophets, led by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, supplied the logic, and a New Testament whose prophets, led by John von Neumann, built the machines. Alan Turing, whose “On...

Natural Sciences

Biology at the Institute for Advanced Study

Freeman J. Dyson

The Institute Letter Winter 2008

This sketch of earlier attempts to bring biology to the Institute for Advanced Study is not a history. I have not dug into the archives to find official documents and exact dates. I am only recording my own fallible memories of events that I either...