Big Idea: Turing and the Computer

At a moment of great discovery, one Big Idea can change the world...

Today, computers touch every aspect of our lives and dominate the world of technology. They have revolutionised the modern age of communication and are arguably one of humankind's greatest achievements.To imagine a 21st Century existence without a computer seems impossible.Yet despite our utter reliance on computers, how much is really known about the way they work or their inventor, Alan Turing?

Turing's work has lasting implications for our day-to-day lives as well as our first notions of artificial intelligence.Both engaging and accessible, Turing and the Computer pays homage to the extraordinary life and work of an intense and emotional man who struggled with discrimination from his peers and family, helped break the Enigma codes to win World War II, and invented the world's first computer...before being largely forgotten by the world.

The Big Idea series is a fascinating look at the greatest advances in our scientific history, and at the men and women who made these fundamental breakthroughs.

Paul Strathern was born in London and studied philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin. He was a lecturer at Kingston University where he taught philosophy and mathematics. He is a Somerset Maugham prize-winning novelist of A Season in Abyssinia, as well as four other novels. He is also the author of the Philosophers in 90 Minutes series.He wrote Mendeleyev's Dream which was shortlisted for the Aventis Science Book Prize, Dr. Strangelove's Game: A History of Economic Genius, The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance, Napoleon in Egypt and most recently, The Artist, The Philosopher and The Warrior, which details the convergence of three of Renaissance Italy's most brilliant minds: Leonardo Da Vinci, Niccolo Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia. He lives in London and has three grandchildren.