The Man Who Knew Too Much : Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer

Leavitt, David

ISBN 10: 0393052362 / ISBN 13: 9780393052367

Published by Norton & Company, Incorporated, W. W., 2005

About this Item

Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Seller Inventory # GRP92205054

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Man Who Knew Too Much : Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer
• Publisher: Norton & Company, Incorporated, W. W.
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393052362
• ISBN 13: 9780393052367
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Good
• Weight: 1.003 pounds

About this title

Synopsis

The story 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 programmable calculating machine. But the idea of actually producing a "Turing machine" did not crystallize until he and his brilliant Bletchley Park colleagues built devices to crack the Nazis' Enigma code, thus ensuring the Allies' victory in World War II. In so doing, Turing became a champion of artificial intelligence, formulating the famous (and still unbeaten) Turing Test that challenges our ideas of human consciousness. But Turing's postwar computer-building was cut short when, as an openly gay man in a time when homosexuality was officially illegal in England, he was apprehended by the authorities and sentenced to a "treatment" that amounted to chemical castration, leading to his suicide.

With a novelist's sensitivity, David Leavitt portrays Turing in all his humanity—his eccentricities, his brilliance, his fatal candor—while elegantly explaining his work and its implications.

About the Author

David Leavitt is the author of several novels, including most recently The Body of Jonah Boyd, and story collections. He teaches creative writing at the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he lives.