The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780393329094)

To solve one of the great mathematical problems of his day, Alan Turing proposed an imaginary computer. Then, attempting to break a Nazi code during World War II, he successfully designed and built one, thus ensuring the Allied victory. Turing became a champion of artificial intelligence, but his work was cut short. As an openly gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England, he was convicted and forced to undergo a humiliating "treatment" that may have led to his suicide.

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

Author: David Leavitt
ISBN-10: 0393329097
ISBN-13: 9780393329094
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English
Published: 11/17/2006
Pages: 336
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 1.00d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 01/21/2007 pg. 20