The original hackers found splendor and elegance in the conventionally dry sciences of math and
electronics. They saw programming as a form of artistic expression and the computer as an instrument
of that art. Their desire to dissect and understand wasn’t intended to demystify artistic endeavors; it
was simply a way to achieve a greater appreciation of them. These knowledge-driven values would
eventually be called the Hacker Ethic: the appreciation of logic as an art form and the promotion of
the free flow of information, surmounting conventional boundaries and restrictions for the simple goal
of better understanding the world. This is not a new cultural trend; the Pythagoreans in ancient Greece
had a similar ethic and subculture, despite not owning computers. They saw beauty in mathematics
and discovered many core concepts in geometry. That thirst for knowledge and its beneficial
byproducts would continue on through history, from the Pythagoreans to Ada Lovelace to Alan Turing
to the hackers of the MIT model railroad club. Modern hackers like Richard Stallman and Steve
Wozniak have continued the hacking legacy, bringing us modern operating systems, programming
languages, personal computers, and many other technologies that we use every day.