The Man Who Knew Too Much
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The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the invention of computers

The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the invention of computers


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About the Book

To solve one of the great mathematical problems of his day, Alan Turing proposed an imaginary programmable calculating machine. But the idea of actually producing a "Turing machine" did not crystallize until he and his brilliant Bletchley Park colleagues built devices to crack the Nazis' Enigma code, thus ensuring the Allies' victory in World War II. In so doing, Turing became a champion of artificial intelligence, formulating the famous (and still unbeaten) Turing Test that challenges our ideas of human consciousness. But Turing's postwar computer-building was cut short when, as an openly gay man in a time when homosexuality was officially illegal in England, he was apprehended by the authorities and sentenced to a "treatment" that amounted to chemical castration, leading to his suicide. With a novelist's sensitivity, David Leavitt portrays Turing in all his humanity-his eccentricities, his brilliance, his fatal candor-while elegantly explaining his work and its implications.

About the Author :
David Leavitt is the author of several novels, including most recently The Body of Jonah Boyd, and story collections. He teaches creative writing at the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he lives.

Review :
a painful and slightly deranged story, a case history to illustrate Freud's notion that modern man is a 'prosthetic god', immortailised by his technological appliances. It is guaranteed to make you feel tenderly towards the martyred Turing - Peter Conrad [Leavitt's] description of Turing's great paper on computable numbers really does explain what it was about and why it was important. Leavitt's biography will give even the most innumerate reader an idea of the beautiful and fascinating world he is missing. Turing... showed that no mathematical system can provide a general method for testing the truth or falsehood of its theorems. A thoroughly compelling read. Leavitt provides a sympathetic novelist's take on a brilliant eccentric... a picture of the fragility of human genius. Alan Turing's story will still fascinate those who come to it through this book. a peculiarly British tragedy, where genius is subordinate to the status quo and conformity prized above all.


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Product Details
  • ISBN-13: 9780297846550
  • Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
  • Publisher Imprint: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
  • Height: 220 mm
  • No of Pages: 320
  • Sub Title: Alan Turing and the invention of computers
  • Width: 140 mm
  • ISBN-10: 0297846558
  • Publisher Date: 08 Jun 2006
  • Binding: Hardback
  • Language: English
  • Spine Width: 30 mm
  • Weight: 520 gr


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