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 97
... symbols , but it could only write them , and it required a human operator to choose the symbols and changes of configuration and position , one at a time . What , Alan Turing asked , would be the most general kind of machine that dealt ...
... symbols , but it could only write them , and it required a human operator to choose the symbols and changes of configuration and position , one at a time . What , Alan Turing asked , would be the most general kind of machine that dealt ...
Page 104
... symbols which may be printed is finite . If we were to allow an infinity of symbols , then there would be symbols differing to an arbitrarily small extent . An ' infinity of symbols ' , he wished to argue , did not correspond to ...
... symbols which may be printed is finite . If we were to allow an infinity of symbols , then there would be symbols differing to an arbitrarily small extent . An ' infinity of symbols ' , he wished to argue , did not correspond to ...
Page 105
... symbols . Next came a most important idea : The behaviour of the computer at any moment is determined by the symbols which he is observing , and his ' state of mind ' at that moment . We may suppose that there is a bound B to the number ...
... symbols . Next came a most important idea : The behaviour of the computer at any moment is determined by the symbols which he is observing , and his ' state of mind ' at that moment . We may suppose that there is a bound B to the number ...
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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 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 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 sexual Shaun Wylie Sherborne signals symbols talk tape teleprinter theorem theory thing thought took Turing machine U-boat universal machine Womersley word writing