The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer (Great Discoveries)

a Skillful And Literate ( new York Times Book Review ) Biography Of The Persecuted Genius Who Helped Create The Modern Computer. publishers Weekly hounded By Authorities And Peers Alike, British Mathematician Alan Turing Committed Suicide In 1954 By Biting Into A Cyanide-laced Apple. A Groundbreaking Thinker In The Field Of Pure Math, A Man Principally Responsible For Breaking The Enigma Code Used By The Germans During Wwii And The Originator Of The Ideas That Led To The Invention Of The Computer, Turing Was Also An Avowed Homosexual At A Time When Such Behavior Flew In The Face Of Both Convention And The Law. Leavitt (the Body Of Jonah Boyd) Writes That The Unfailingly Logical Turing Was So Literal Minded, He Neither Glorified Nor Anthologized His Homosexuality. Educated At King's College, Cambridge, And Princeton, Turing Produced The Landmark Paper On Computable Numbers In 1937, Where He Proposed The Radical Idea That Machines Would And Could Think For Themselves. Despite His Enigma Code-breaking Prowess During The War, Which Gave The Allies A Crucial Advantage, Turing Was Arrested In 1952 And Charged With Committing Acts Of Gross Indecency With Another Man. With Lyrical Prose And Great Compassion, Leavitt Has Produced A Simple Book About A Complex Man Involved In An Almost Unfathomable Task That Is Accessible To Any Reader. Illus. (nov. 28) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information. A "skillful and literate" (New York Times Book Review) biography of the persecuted genius who helped create the modern computer. To solve one of the great mathematical problems of his day, Alan Turing proposed an imaginary computer. Then, attempting to break a Nazi code during World War II, he successfully designed and built one, thus ensuring the Allied victory. Turing became a champion of artificial intelligence, but his work was cut short. As an openly gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England, he was convicted and forced to undergo a humiliating "treatment" that may have led to his suicide. With a novelist's sensitivity, David Leavitt portrays Turing in all his humanity—his eccentricities, his brilliance, his fatal candor—and elegantly explains his work and its implications. Neumann and Ludwig Wittgenstein." "After the war, Turing became a champion of artificial intelligence, formulating the famous Turing Test that challenges our ideas of human consciousness. But Turing's postwar computer-building was cut short when he was arrested for violating antihomosexuality laws and sentenced to a "treatment" that amounted to chemical castration." "As he explains Turing's work and its implications, David Leavitt never loses sight of Turing's humanity, using a novelist's "One of the most important openings in the path to the modern computer was made by the British mathematician Alan Turing - remarkably, while he was solving an entirely different problem. Shy and insecure about his middle-class origins, considered eccentric by those who did not know him well, Turing could show those close to him sly humor and bracing candor - even about his homosexuality. He also had one of the keenest minds of the twentieth century." "Turing's famous 1936 doctoral Outlines the Bletchley Park mathematician's efforts to launch artificial intelligence innovations, describing his thwarted attempts to gain support for a programmable calculating machine, his contributions to cracking the Nazi Enigma code during World War II, and how the revelation of his homosexuality led to his tragic imprisonment and suicide. Reprint. Biography Of The Persecuted Genius Who Helped Create The Modern Computer. The Man In The White Suit -- Watching The Daisies Grow -- The Universal Machine -- God Is Slick -- The Tender Peel -- The Electronic Athlete -- The Imitation Game -- Pryce's Buoy. David Leavitt. Atlas Books. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 301-303) And Index. Outlines the English mathematician's efforts in devising a programmable calculating machine, his work in cracking the Nazi Enigma code, and how the revelation of his homosexuality led to his tragic imprisonment and suicide. Sensitivity to enter Turing's world and tell his extraordinary story."--Jacket