Alan Turing: The EnigmaA gripping story of mathematics, science, computing, war history, cryptography, and homosexual persecution and liberation. Hodges tells how Turing's revolutionary idea of 1936-- the concept of a universal machine-- laid the foundation for the modern computer. Turing brought the idea to practical realization in 1945 with his electronic design. 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. Despite his wartime service, Turing 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. This New York Times bestselling biography of the founder of computer science and artificial intelligence is the definitive account of an extraordinary mind and life. --Excerpted from 2014 version, published by Princeton University Press. |
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Page 294
... universal machine could also play out the workings of human brains . Whatever a brain did , any brain , could in principle be placed as a ' description number ' on the tape of a Universal Machine . This was his vision . But there was ...
... universal machine could also play out the workings of human brains . Whatever a brain did , any brain , could in principle be placed as a ' description number ' on the tape of a Universal Machine . This was his vision . But there was ...
Page 295
... universal machine . Still , Alan had suggested in Computable Numbers that human memory was finite in extent . If this were so then the human brain itself could hold only a limited number of ' tables of behaviour ' , and a sufficiently ...
... universal machine . Still , Alan had suggested in Computable Numbers that human memory was finite in extent . If this were so then the human brain itself could hold only a limited number of ' tables of behaviour ' , and a sufficiently ...
Page 322
... Universal Turing Machine . The principle was simple : " The universal machine has only to keep looking at this description ' – that is , at the instructions on its tape – ' to find out what it should do at each stage . ' So the Logical ...
... Universal Turing Machine . The principle was simple : " The universal machine has only to keep looking at this description ' – that is , at the instructions on its tape – ' to find out what it should do at each stage . ' So the Logical ...
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Common terms and phrases
Alan Turing Alan Turing's Alan wrote Alan's American AMT's arithmetic Bletchley Bletchley Park Bombe boys brain Britain British calculation called Cambridge cathode ray tube chess Christopher cipher Computable Numbers cryptanalytic Darwin delay line Delilah differential analyser digits discussion Don Bayley Donald Michie EDVAC electronic enciphered engineering ENIAC Enigma machine explained fact G.H. Hardy German Hanslope Hilbert homosexual human idea instructions intelligence interest kind King's knew letter logical Manchester mathematician mathematics Max Newman mechanical messages method mind Morcom naval Enigma Neumann never Newman operations organisation paper perhaps Peter Hilton physical play plugboard position possible Princeton principle problem question Robin Gandy rotor scientific secret Shaun Wylie Sherborne signals symbols talk tape teleprinter theorem theory thing thought took Turing machine U-boat universal machine Womersley word writing