Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
W&N (2021), 80 pages
Description
From WW2 code-breaker to Artificial Intelligence - a fascinating account of the remarkable Alan Turing. Alan Turing's 1936 paper On Computable Numbers was a landmark of twentieth-century thought. It not only provided the principle of the post-war computer, but also gave an entirely new approach to the philosophy of the mind. Influenced by his crucial codebreaking work during the war, and by practical pioneering of the first electronic computers, Turing argued that all the operations of the mind could be performed by computers. His thesis is the cornerstone of modern Artificial Intelligence. Andrew Hodges gives a fresh analysis of Turing's work, relating it to his extraordinary life.
User reviews
LibraryThing member RonManners
"Alan Turing's paper On Computable Numbers, introducing the Turing machine, was a landmark of twentieth century thought. It settled a deep problem in the foundations of mathematics, and provided the principle of the post-war electronic computer. It also supplied a new approach to the philosophy of
Show More
the mind." Show Less
LibraryThing member themulhern
Capsule biography by _the_ Turing biographer for a series titled "The Great Philosophers Series". It's well written, but so necessarily terse that it conveys a feeling more than understanding. Turing emerges from most biographies as such a likable figure, I don't know why. It is surely better than
Show More
most other capsule biographies of Turing, which would attempt breeziness, pathetically. It quotes extensively from Turing's original work, which is hard to read w/out or even perhaps with the context of his other original writings. And finally it discusses the relationship of Roger Penrose's ideas about mind to Turing, about which I really know only what I was able to glean from reading about Neal Stephenson's "Anathem". Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1999
ISBN
147461678X / 9781474616782