Alan Turing: The Enigma (1983)

Densely written. I failed to read this in late 2011/early 2012 but I might try again sometime.

A fascinating, detailed biography of a hugely important but largely unknown figure.I mean all I knew about Alan Turning was his legacy in computer science but he was much more than that.

He started life as a mathematician then WWII directed him into cryptanalysis (the infamous Enigma machine), afterwards he worked on the 1st computer and lastly became fascinated with mathematical biology. Always a genius he was also an outsider, partly due to his homosexuality which was illegal at the time and was a suggested cause behind his probable suicide at the age of 42.

Alan Turing did not leave much for a biographer and this book deals mostly with his large body of work. This was a bit of a problem for me as I am extremely bad at understanding maths and I felt the theories were not explained terribly well. If you do have a basic understanding you should be fine but otherwise you may want to think twice (although I found it easier once the work moved into cryptanalysis). I also found the book quite dry, especially during Turing's school days (reading books by George Orwell, whom he references, helps bring it alive) but as it progresses this matters less and less as his life becomes much more interesting.

One nice thing is that the author spends much of the time putting Turing's life in context so we also learn such things as the politics behind Enigma, the race to create the 1st computer and the social climate surrounding homosexuality during the time of his death.

Lastly it was written in 1983 (updated in 1990) but I don't think this has much impact as the UK government is still withholding information. I did find it interesting thinking how far science has come since the book was written, let alone since Alan Turing's time! All in all I would recommend this for anyone interested in Alan Turning or the history of computing (I know there are many separate books on Enigma). ( )

This definitive biography of the great mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing is, like almost all definitive biographies, just a wee bit boring. ( )

Library ( )

One of the best bios of an intellectual, warts and all. The gay pride angle grates a bit, but than I am just a reactionary repressed etc. etc.

One thing occurs to me: the British establishment looked on gays with horror as they thought that they could be blackmailed into spilling the secrets. Why not just tell your employer "I'm gay, but I'll keep quiet about it", then you couldn't be blackmailed.