Overview

Alan Turing has long proved a subject of fascination, but following the centenary of his birth in 2012, the code-breaker, computer pioneer, mathematician (and much more) has become even more celebrated with much media coverage, and several meetings, conferences and books raising public awareness of Turing's life and work.This volume will bring together contributions from some of the leading experts on Alan Turing to create a comprehensive guide to Turing that will serve as a useful resource for researchers in the area as well as the increasingly interested general reader. The book will cover aspects of Turing's life and the wide range of his intellectual activities, including mathematics, code-breaking, computer science, logic, artificial intelligence and mathematical biology, as well as his subsequent influence.

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9780198747833

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Reviews

The Turing Guide is just as its title suggests, a remarkably broad-ranging compendium of Alan Turing's lifetime contributions. Credible and comprehensive, it is a rewarding exploration of a man, who in his life was appropriately revered and unfairly reviled. Vint Cerf, American Internet pioneer An excellent compendium of essays covering Alan Turing's life and work, covering everything from his childhood to his final days, from the universal machine to cracking the Enigma, from artificial intelligence to morphogenesis. Simon Singh, author of Fermat's Last Theorem and The Code Book Turing was a genius who helped shorten the war though his extraordinary solutions to the Enigma and Tunny machines ciphers that the Germans were using ... We owe him a huge debt. Stephen Fry

The Turing Guide has opened up a universe of Turing's other pursuits I knew nothing about, inflating my admiration for him and his work by several orders of magnitude. I doubt that there exists a more complete book about Turing's life and work. A towering figure in the history of computing, but also in history itself, we come to know Turing with a completeness unattained by any preceding work. * Vint Cerf, Physics World * This is a welcome addition to the existing generally accessible literature that gives additional testimony of the brilliant mind of Alan Turing. There is historical as well as technical material that will be appreciated also by specialists whatever their discipline: history, mathematics, biology, computer science, or philosophy. * Adhemar Bultheel, The European Mathematical Society * A handful of the guide's 33 contributors worked at Bletchley and knew Turing personally. Their reminiscences can be fascinating, funny, even moving. ... But it is, I think, pretty much the last word on the subject. And it will ensure that while we may never decode the whole of Turing's mind, his name will never again be forgotten. * Andrew Robinson, New Scientist * extremely informative, highly readable, and well produced with many photographs and useful figures to aid exposition. The preface states the book was 'written for general readers, and Turing's scientific and mathematical concepts are explained in an accessible way'. This has been achieved with great success. However, those working in a range of fields will also benefit a lot from articles written by experts and pointers to the extended literature. * David Glass, London Mathematical Society * The Turing Guide is an important and valuable contribution to our understanding of an extraordinary scientist and the profound and lasting resonances of his work. The essays are deeply researched, well written, and cogently argued, and the book itself is beautifully produced and amply illustrated. * Ernest Davis, SIAM News * Splendidly produced and lavishly illustrated with photographs, drawings and diagrams, the volume is a valuable source not only of high-level, in-depth, wide-ranging articles but also of rare primary sources from the crucial period in the history of science. * Carla Petrocelli, Nunicus * Offers new perspectives, many photos not in the larger volume, and even new topics for consideration, such as one essay titled Turing and the Paranormal . It is a welcome addition to the Turing literature... Highly recommended. * , , CHOICE * With 'The Turing Guide', Oxford University Press has struck the right formula. Breaking the story into several sections allows readers to cherry-pick the bits that are of interest to them, either running through from start to finish or sticking to the biographical chapters and using the pointers to sections which go into more technical depth as they wish. * Dominic Lenton, E&T Magazine * excellent compendium of essays * Tom Schulte, MAA Reviews * a superb collection of articles written from numerous different perspectives, of the life, times, profound ideas, and enormous heritage of Alan Turing and those around him. We find, here, numerous accounts, both personal and historical, of this great and eccentric man, whose life was both tragic and triumphantly influential. * Sir Roger Penrose, Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics, the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford * An excellent compendium of essays covering Alan Turing's life and work, covering everything from his childhood to his final days, from the universal machine to cracking the Enigma, from artificial intelligence to morphogenesis. * Simon Singh, author of Fermat's Last Theorem and The Code Book * There is excellent material on the various aspects of Alan Turing's wide range of contributions I recommend The Turing Guide * Cliff B. Jones, Formal Aspects of Computing *

The Turing Guide is just as its title suggests, a remarkably broad-ranging compendium of Alan Turing's lifetime contributions. Credible and comprehensive, it is a rewarding exploration of a man, who in his life was appropriately revered and unfairly reviled. Vint Cerf, American Internet pioneer The Turing Guide provides a superb collection of articles written from numerous different perspectives, of the life, times, profound ideas, and enormous heritage of Alan Turing and those around him. We find, here, numerous accounts, both personal and historical, of this great and eccentric man, whose life was both tragic and triumphantly influential. Sir Roger Penrose, Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford An excellent compendium of essays covering Alan Turing's life and work, covering everything from his childhood to his final days, from the universal machine to cracking the Enigma, from artificial intelligence to morphogenesis. Simon Singh, author of Fermat's Last Theorem and The Code Book Turing was a genius who helped shorten the war though his extraordinary solutions to the Enigma and Tunny machines ciphers that the Germans were using ... We owe him a huge debt. Stephen Fry

Turing was a genius who helped shorten the war though his extraordinary solutions to the Enigma and Tunny machines ciphers that the Germans were using ... We owe him a huge debt. * Stephen Fry * An excellent compendium of essays covering Alan Turing's life and work, covering everything from his childhood to his final days, from the universal machine to cracking the Enigma, from artificial intelligence to morphogenesis. * Simon Singh, author of Fermat's Last Theorem and The Code Book * The Turing Guide provides a superb collection of articles written from numerous different perspectives, of the life, times, profound ideas, and enormous heritage of Alan Turing and those around him. We find, here, numerous accounts, both personal and historical, of this great and eccentric man, whose life was both tragic and triumphantly influential. * Sir Roger Penrose, Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford * The Turing Guide is just as its title suggests, a remarkably broad-ranging compendium of Alan Turing's lifetime contributions. Credible and comprehensive, it is a rewarding exploration of a man, who in his life was appropriately revered and unfairly reviled. * Vint Cerf, American Internet pioneer * With 'The Turing Guide', a thick and extensively illustrated new take on combining these different elements, Oxford University Press has struck the right formula. Breaking the story into several sections allows readers to cherry-pick the bits that are of interest to them, either running through from start to finish or sticking to the biographical chapters and using the pointers to sections which go into more technical depth as they wish. * Dominic Lenton, E&T Magazine * A handful of the guide's 33 contributors worked at Bletchley and knew Turing personally. Their reminiscences can be fascinating, funny, even moving. ... But it is, I think, pretty much the last word on the subject. And it will ensure that while we may never decode the whole of Turing's mind, his name will never again be forgotten. * Andrew Robinson, New Scientist *

A handful of the guide's 33 contributors worked at Bletchley and knew Turing personally. Their reminiscences can be fascinating, funny, even moving. ... But it is, I think, pretty much the last word on the subject. And it will ensure that while we may never decode the whole of Turing's mind, his name will never again be forgotten. Andrew Robinson, New Scientist With 'The Turing Guide', a thick and extensively illustrated new take on combining these different elements, Oxford University Press has struck the right formula. Breaking the story into several sections allows readers to cherry-pick the bits that are of interest to them, either running through from start to finish or sticking to the biographical chapters and using the pointers to sections which go into more technical depth as they wish. Dominic Lenton, E&T Magazine The Turing Guide is just as its title suggests, a remarkably broad-ranging compendium of Alan Turing's lifetime contributions. Credible and comprehensive, it is a rewarding exploration of a man, who in his life was appropriately revered and unfairly reviled. Vint Cerf, American Internet pioneer The Turing Guide provides a superb collection of articles written from numerous different perspectives, of the life, times, profound ideas, and enormous heritage of Alan Turing and those around him. We find, here, numerous accounts, both personal and historical, of this great and eccentric man, whose life was both tragic and triumphantly influential. Sir Roger Penrose, Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford An excellent compendium of essays covering Alan Turing's life and work, covering everything from his childhood to his final days, from the universal machine to cracking the Enigma, from artificial intelligence to morphogenesis. Simon Singh, author of Fermat's Last Theorem and The Code Book Turing was a genius who helped shorten the war though his extraordinary solutions to the Enigma and Tunny machines ciphers that the Germans were using ... We owe him a huge debt. Stephen Fry

Author Information

Jack Copeland FRS NZ is Distinguished Professor in Arts at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, where he is Director of the Turing Archive for the History of Computing. He has been script advisor and scientific consultant for a number of recent documentaries about Turing. Jack is Co-Director of the Turing Centre at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, and also Honorary Research Professor in the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry at the University of Queensland, Australia. In 2012 he was Royden B. Davis Visiting Chair of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Department of Psychology at Georgetown University, Washington DC, and in 2015-16 was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Israel. A Londoner by birth, he earned a D.Phil. in mathematical logic from the University of Oxford, where he was taught by Turing's great friend Robin Gandy. Robin Wilson is an Emeritus Professor of Pure Mathematics at the Open University, UK, and of Geometry at Gresham College, London. After graduating from Oxford, he received his Ph.D. degree in number theory from the University of Pennsylvania. He has written and co-edited many books on graph theory and the history of mathematics, including Four Colors Suffice and Combinatorics: Ancient & Modern. His historical research interests include British mathematics and the history of graph theory and combinatorics, and he has been President of the British Society for the History of Mathematics. An enthusiastic popularizer of mathematics, he won two awards for expository writing from the Mathematical Association of America. Mark Sprevak is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. His primary research interests are in philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and metaphysics, with particular focus on the cognitive sciences. He has published articles in, among other places, The Journal of Philosophy, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Synthese, Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology, and Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. His book The Computational Mind is forthcoming from Routledge. Jonathan P. Bowen FBCS FRSA is Emeritus Professor of Computing at London South Bank University, where he established and headed the Centre for Applied Formal Methods in 2000. During 2013-15 he was Professor of Computer Science at Birmingham City University. Previously he was a lecturer at the University of Reading, a senior researcher at the Oxford University Computing Laboratory's Programming Research Group, and a research assistant at Imperial College, London. Since 1977 he has been involved with the field of computing in both academia and industry. His books include: Formal Specification and Documentation using Z; High-Integrity System Specification and Design; Formal Methods: State of the Art and New Directions; and Electronic Visualisation in Arts and Culture.

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