ABSTRACT
Richard P. Feynman figured out the details of how to use one processor to simulate each of Hopfleld's neurons, with the strength of each connection represented as a number in the processor's memory. Feynman worked out in some detail the program for computing Hopfield's network on the Connection Machine. Feynman's insistence on looking at the details helped to discover the potential of the machine for numerical computing and physical simulation. The router of the Connection Machine was the part of the hardware that allowed the processors to communicate. Once the factors are determined, the logarithm can be computed by adding together the precomputed logarithms of the factors. Concentrating on the algorithm for a basic arithmetic operation was typical of Richard's approach. Cellular automata started getting attention at Thinking Machines in 1984 when Wolfram suggested that we should use such automata not as a model of Nature, but as a practical approximation method for simulating physical systems.
