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Turing and the Computer: The Big Idea
 
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Turing and the Computer: The Big Idea [Paperback]

Paul Strathern (Author)
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
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Few concepts in the history of 20th-century thought are as rich with both philosophical and practical implications as the computer. And few people in the history of computing are as intellectually and personally complex as Alan Turing, the man whose brilliant mathematical imagination laid the foundation for computers as we know them. You could easily spend the rest of the millennium reading up on Turing and his ideas, but if you've only got an afternoon, this engaging, pamphlet-length summary of the man's life and work should get you nicely up to speed.

Author Paul Strathern sets Turing's accomplishments in their historical context. He starts with the long prehistory of the computer--its roots in devices such as the abacus, the slide rule, and Charles Babbage's remarkably sophisticated 19th-century "difference engine." Strathern then moves deftly through the great mathematical debates that led to Turing's formulation of the abstract "universal computing machine" in the mid-1930s. The author also lucidly presents Turing's contributions to turning that abstraction into a concrete mechanism, beginning with Turing's work on the Colossus machine, which cracked Germany's secret codes during World War II.

Strathern conveys with equal vividness the haunted private side of Turing's life--his furtive homosexuality, his difficult relationships, and his conviction in the early '50s on charges of indecency, a not-so-private scandal that apparently led to his suicide. The book owes its rich detail to the work of pioneering Turing biographer Alan Hodges, and Strathern graciously acknowledges the debt. But the accomplishment of packing Turing's big life and big ideas into such a compact package is entirely Strathern's own. --Julian Dibbell

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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star:
 (1)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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2.0 out of 5 stars Computer Journalism, Mar 6 2003
By 
V C Mueller (Thessaloniki, Greece) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Turing and the Computer: The Big Idea (Paperback)
If you want to read about Turing and the origins of computing on the level and in the style of your Sunday newspaper, this is your book (especially if that Sunday newspaper of yours comes in tabloid format). Otherwise, go for something more intelligent, like A. Hodges, Davies or Copeland.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Learn about computer history!, Jan 30 2001
By 
Gabriel Torres (Reno, NV, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Turing and the Computer: The Big Idea (Paperback)
What? You have never heard of Alan Turing? You don't deserve tolive! Quick, buy this book (which [is inexpensive]) and learn everything about computer history before uncle Gabriel discover it and pull your ear lobes! This book shows the computer history, beginning from abacus and obviously focuses at Alan Turing and his most important inventions for computing history, the Colossus and the ENIAC. What? You have never heard of ENIAC? Promise to us: come back here in Hardware Secrets only after you have finished reading this book, ok?
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3.0 out of 5 stars Nice biography, but not technical enough, Nov 2 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Turing and the Computer: The Big Idea (Paperback)
This book gives a short overview over the life of Alan Turing, though it does not go as deep into detail as Douglas Hofstaedter does - and that was just one article in his Metamagicum collection! But if you don't already have Hofstaedter on your bookshelf, you might as well buy this book.

Unfortunately, the mathematical and technical stuff in the book are only described very vaguely - I did not understand how the Enigma code was cracked, or how the proofs concerning computability worked. I am not quite sure whether the author understood what he was writing about.

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