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Description
“It is possible to invent a single machine which can be used to compute any computable sequence,” twenty-four-year-old Alan Turing announced in 1936. In Turing’s Cathedral, George Dyson focuses on a small group of men and women, led by John von Neumann at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, who built one of the first computers to realize Alan Turing’s vision of a Universal Machine. Their work
...Author
Pub. Date
[2014].
Physical Desc
xxxii, 736 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 20 cm
Description
A gripping story of mathematics, computers, cryptography, and homosexual persecution. 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...
Author
Formats
Description
A "skillful, 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...
Author
Pub. Date
2012
Physical Desc
xxii, 401 p. : ill., map ; 25 cm.
Description
"Legendary historian and philosopher of science George Dyson vividly re-creates the scenes of focused experimentation, incredible mathematical insight, and pure creative genius that gave us computers, digital television, modern genetics, models of stellar evolution--in other words, computer code. In the 1940s and '50s, a group of eccentric geniuses--led by John von Neumann--gathered at the newly created Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New...
Pub. Date
[2015]
Physical Desc
1 videodisc (114 minutes) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in.
Description
During the winter of 1952, British authorities entered the home of mathematician, cryptanalyst and war hero Alan Turing to investigate a reported burglary. They instead ended up arresting Turing himself on charges of "gross indecency," an accusation that would lead to his devastating conviction for the criminal offense of homosexuality - little did officials know, they were actually incriminating the pioneer of modern-day computing. Famously leading...
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