Specify Books To Alan Turing: The Enigma
| Original Title: | Alan Turing: The Enigma ASIN B00M032W92 |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Alan Turing |
Define Containing Books Alan Turing: The Enigma
| Title | : | Alan Turing: The Enigma |
| Author | : | Andrew Hodges |
| Book Format | : | Kindle Edition |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 762 pages |
| Published | : | November 10th 2014 by Princeton University Press (first published November 1st 1983) |
| Categories | : | Biography. Nonfiction. History. Science. Mathematics |
Narrative Supposing Books Alan Turing: The Enigma
It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the British mathematician Alan Turing (1912-1954) saved the Allies from the Nazis, invented the computer and artificial intelligence, and anticipated gay liberation by decades--all before his suicide at age forty-one. This acclaimed biography of the founder of computer science, with a new preface by the author that addresses Turing’s royal pardon in 2013, is the definitive account of an extraordinary mind and life.
Capturing both the inner and outer drama of Turing’s life, Andrew Hodges tells how Turing’s revolutionary idea of 1936--the concept of a universal machine--laid the foundation for the modern computer and how Turing brought the idea to practical realization in 1945 with his electronic design. The book also tells how this work was directly related to Turing’s leading role in breaking the German Enigma ciphers during World War II, a scientific triumph that was critical to Allied victory in the Atlantic. At the same time, this is the tragic account of a man who, despite his wartime service, was eventually arrested, stripped of his security clearance, and forced to undergo a humiliating treatment program--all for trying to live honestly in a society that defined homosexuality as a crime.
The inspiration for a major motion picture starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, Alan Turing: The Enigma is a gripping story of mathematics, computers, cryptography, and homosexual persecution.
Rating Containing Books Alan Turing: The Enigma
Ratings: 3.8 From 7712 Users | 830 ReviewsDiscuss Containing Books Alan Turing: The Enigma
I watched The Imitation Game last week and I was left in awe, and slightly ashamed of myself for not knowing the contribution of Alan Turing to the war efforts and the advent of the computer age. After the film i bought this book and a few others in order to get to know more about the brilliant man and the code-breaking that went on during WW2. This is an extremely well-written and detailed book, and while a little heavy of the maths side there is nothing not to be expected from a biography(4.5) Quite a thorough biography, I prefer the Bletchley Park period, but quite complete picture of his lifeI only have a couple of complaints. The book is quite lengthy. I feel that some digressions into the politics at his boarding school, for example, weren't worth diving into to explain the effect it had on his presence there. Hodges also employs this extended mixed metaphor intertwining Alice in Wonderland (apropos), Wizard of Oz (less so), among others. Not sure it helped to continue
For him, breaking the Enigma was much easier than the problem of dealing with other people, especially with those holding power.
31/03/2015: I NEED THIS RIGHT NOW
To read this is to feel humbled, not just by Alan Turings brilliant mind, but also by the years of dedicated work that Andrew Hodges put into this biography. At 700-plus pages, including a massive number of footnotes and references which are themselves a fund of fascinating information, it is dense going however, and probably not for everyone, although I found it totally absorbing**. Here finally (well, not really finally as it was written in 1983) was someone who could explain Turings universal
Alan Turing was a mathematician. I have a degree in mathematics. Alan Turing ran marathons. I have run three marathons. Alan Turing lived in and around Wilmslow. I grew up in Poynton, just a handful of miles from Wilmslow. Can you see where I am going with this? HOWEVER, I used my mathematics to write computer programs (and deserted that after a few years) whereas Alan Turing invented computers and computer programming. I finished my marathons in the middle of the pack whereas Alan Turing was up
in the early days of computing, a number of terms for the practitioners of the field of computing were suggested in the Communications of the ACM turingineer, turologist, flow-charts-man, applied meta-mathematician, and applied epistemologist. - wiki In a man of his type, one never knows what his mental processes are going to do next. - JAK Ferns, Turing's coronerThere have been two big films about Turing (three if you count the uselessly fictionalised Enigma (2001)). All of them are more or
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