Neil Gershenfeld

So von Neumann studied self-reproducing automata, how a machine communicates its own construction.

Turing studied morphogenesis, how genes give rise to form.

They ended their life studying the embodiment of computation, something that's been forgotten by the canon of computing, but developed sort of off to the sides by a really interesting lineage.

Right.

So I never understood the difference between computer science and physical science.

And working at that boundary helped lead to things like my lab was part of doing with a number of interesting collaborators, the first faster than classical quantum computations.

We were part of a collaboration creating the minimal synthetic organism where you design life in a computer.

Those both involve

domains where you just can't separate hardware from software.

The embodiment of computation is embodied in these really profound ways.

In high school, I really wanted to go to vocational school where you learn to weld and fix cars and build houses.

And I was told, no, you're smart.

You have to sit in a room.

And nobody could explain to me why I couldn't go to vocational school.

I then worked at Bell Labs.

this wonderful place before deregulation, legendary place.

And I would get union grievances because I would go into the workshop and try to make something.

And they would say, no, you're smart.

You have to tell somebody what to do.

And it wasn't until MIT, and I'll explain how CBA started, but I could create CBA