You know, perhaps it's something to do with the times. Most stuff happened in the 50's to 70's ... nothing truly "new" was invented after that. Most "new" things are simply built on top of the old or "improved" the old. E.g. there's no really "new" operating system since the 60's - they all still use the same old concepts, and in nearly all instances they're actually just updates of those old systems. Programming languages haven't "improved" much either, AFAIK the last new idea in programming was OO (late 70's to early 80's). But that's a whole other discussion.
So all the "greats" seem be starting to swap the physical for the spiritual.
Also hope a recursion ever-after for McCarthy
. Though I'd hate to think Ritchie's in any kind of pointer eternity!