Review of Ideas that Created the Future

What are the most important papers in computer science? What are the most important 46 papers in computer science? Yikes! Far more than 46 seem to qualify. Picking out the top 46 papers in computer science is the task that befallen Harry Lewis (henceforth Harry). I suspect it was both a burden (gee, which ones to omit?) and a joy (Wow, these papers are insightful!). He used two (probably more) criteria that helped him cut it down (1) he prefers short readable papers to long unreadable ones (don't we all!), and (2) no paper past 1980 (arbitrary but firm cutoff). There were also absurd financial constraints based on how much the rights to republish a paper costs. In some cases a paper that is available online for free cost too much to put into a book. See my comment on Turing's 1936 paper. This book is a collection of the 46 most important papers in computer science, in the opinion of Harry, relative to some constraints. The complete list is at the end of the review. While I am sure many readers will think why isn't X in the list, or why is X in the list, or I never heard of X, I suspect that 2/3 of the people reading this review will agree with 2/3 of the papers on the list. I would urge people to read the book AND THEN have an intelligent debate about which papers should or should not be in it.