Description
Programming Legend Charles Petzold unlocks the secrets of the odd and prescient 1936 paper by Alan M. Turing
Mathematician Alan Turing invented an imaginary computer referred to as the Turing Machine; in an age before computers, he explored the idea that of what it meant to be computable, creating the sphere of computability theory within the process, a foundation of present-day computer programming.
The book expands Turing’s original 36-page paper with additional background chapters and extensive annotations; the writer elaborates on and clarifies many of Turing’s statements, making the unique difficult-to-read document accessible to provide day programmers, computer science majors, math geeks, and others.
Interwoven into the narrative are the highlights of Turing’s own life: his years at Cambridge and Princeton, his secret work in cryptanalysis all over World War II, his involvement in seminal computer projects, his speculations about artificial intelligence, his arrest and prosecution for the crime of “gross indecency,” and his early death by apparent suicide on the age of 41.