Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann
(Sasha Shulgin, who died in 2014, was a brilliant chemist who held a DEA license allowing him to synthesize novel psychedelic compounds, which he did in prodigious numbers. He also was the first to synthesize MDMA since it had been patented by Merck in 1912 and forgotten. Recognizing its psychoactive properties, he introduced the so-called empathog
... See moreMichael Pollan • How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics
Eventually, Max Newman, a Bletchley mathematician, came up with a way to mechanize the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher. Drawing heavily on Alan Turing’s concept of the universal machine, Newman designed a machine that was capable of adapting itself to different problems, what we today would call a programmable computer.
Simon Singh • The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography
