V

Prof. I.Bernard Cohen
5 Stella Road
Belmont MA 02178
E-mail IBCohen@fas.Harvard.edu

1996 August 08

Dr. Joshua Lederberg
Rockefeller University
New York, N.Y.

Dear Dr. Lederberg:

I have been slow in acknowledging your splendid gift of a series of
reprints because I did not wish to send you a meaningless and
formal thank you-~-of the kind that could be written by a secretary.
And so I waited until I had time to read what you had sent.

This has meant a delay because I have been somewhat overwhelmed by
my work. I have had to put the finishing touches (or final
revisions) to our new translation of Newton’s Principia, together
with a book-length "Guide" for readers. My collaboratrix died a
few years ago and so this was my sole responsibility.

At the same time, I have had to do the final revisions of two works
on an aspect of the history of the computer. One is a "portrait"
of Howard Aiken, the Harvard computer pioneer whose first machine,
the Mark I, created a sensation, said by many older computer
scientists to have marked the opening of the computer age. The
other is a volume of essays on some aspects of the Harvard machines
and the Harvard program in computer science which was, I believe,
the first such program leading to higher degrees anywhere in the
world.

During the last decade or so I have been a member of an advisory
committee to ARPA or DARPA which has sponsored two history
projects, for which I was a major supervisor. One was a history of
IpTO and has just been published by the Johns Hopkins Press. The
other is a history of "strategic computing," now reaching the final
stages. In the course of this work, I have got to know Saul
Amorel, who has told me about your own involvement with computers.
This is a subject which I should like to explore with you some
time--among others.

Of course, I read with great interest your biographical account of
Dr Tatum. But for me, one of the most interesting items in the
packet was your discussion of genetic recombination in bacteria--it
is rare that a scientist’s personal retrospective has so analytical
and interesting a point of view. I also found your discussion of
projects versus people very stimulating. You refer to a
forthcoming paper on the "social function" of the scientist as
"forthcoming"--has it come forth? Perhaps this is the typewritten
article dated 1989 in a German publication. Your papers on
artificial intelligence and on communication raise very important
questions which I should like to discuss when I have had an
opportunity to get my own thoughts in order.

 

ar
I wonder whether you have a complete list of your publications of
recent years. It seems to me that, generous as you were, there are
some papers of which I have some recollection (was one in NATURE?)
which are not here.

Once again, let me conclude by thanking you for your kindness in
sending me these publications. I am sending you separately my most
recent book, parts of which may be of interest to you.

Cordially } R A ( !
rbornasa-cohen

Victor S. Thomas Professor (emeritus) of the
History of Science, Harvard University