posted by
azdak at 03:41pm on 15/04/2009
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I'm about halfway through the Turing book now, and am charmed by Hodge's assumption (quite correct, in my case) that every detail of Turing's life is of abosrbing interest. Thus I know now that while he was at Bletchley, one of the books Turing read was The Mind of the Maker, by a certain Dorothy L. Sayers. Hodges doesn't say so explicitly, but surely we can draw the inference that Turing was a Peter Wimsey fan? I like the man more by the minute!
I'm also glad to report that Hodges deals with the maths admirably, so that while, obviously, I don't actually understand it, I do get a feel for the problems in general terms, and how Turing's approach was innovative. I've actually come across quite a lot of the problems before (Y halo thar, zeta-function!) in popular science books, and Hodges' handling compares very favourably with other "explanations" out there. I was glad, though, that I'd read Simon Singh's The Code Book beforehand, because otherwise I would definitely have struggled with the chapters on Enigma.
I'm also glad to report that Hodges deals with the maths admirably, so that while, obviously, I don't actually understand it, I do get a feel for the problems in general terms, and how Turing's approach was innovative. I've actually come across quite a lot of the problems before (Y halo thar, zeta-function!) in popular science books, and Hodges' handling compares very favourably with other "explanations" out there. I was glad, though, that I'd read Simon Singh's The Code Book beforehand, because otherwise I would definitely have struggled with the chapters on Enigma.
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