Turing and the Universal Machine

The history of the computer is entwined with that of the modern world and most famously with the life of one man, Alan Turing. A machine unlike any other, this ?electronic brain? is of apparently universal application; yet paradoxically, given its almost infinite scope, it can only follow instructions. How did this device, which first appeared a mere 50 years ago, come to structure and dominate our lives so totally? Turing, widely hailed as the man instrumental in breaking the Nazi Enigma code, is also regarded as the father of the modern computer. In this book, Jon Agar tells the fascinating history of the appearance of the universal machine: from the work of Charles Babbage in the 1820s and 30s, and the data-sorting nightmare of the 1890 American Census, to Turing?s formulation of a ?computing machine? designed to solve an infamous mathematical problem of his day, and his later explorations into Artificial Intelligence. Spurred on by the imperatives of the Second World War, the first commercial electronic computer was built in 1951 and nicknamed the ?Blue Pig?. Yet Turing did not live long enough to celebrate its success. A victim of Cold War paranoia, his prosecution for homosexuality led to a severing of his connections with the British secret service, and shortly after to his suspected suicide in 1954. Setting events in a rich historical context, Turing and the Universal Machine makes the development of the computer readily understandable but no less remarkable.