Alan Turing: The Enigma, Hodges - B -

                                               I decided to read this thirty-year old-book because it is the basis of the new movie 'The Imitation Game', wherein Benedict Cumberbatch plays Turing so extraordinarily well that it piqued my curiosity. This is the definitive biography, perhaps because only a mathematician could write about one of the maths greats of the 20th century. After all, Turing dreamed up a machine that was an early computer. So, the good news is, it is a well-written book. The bad news is there's a lot of math in it. There is also a tremendous amount of detail about the intellectual background of the era, as well as on society's perceptions of homosexuality. Turing was brilliant, socially awkward and a homosexual, thus making his education years ones to be endured. He studied at Kings College, Cambridge, stayed on as a don, spent time at Princeton and in 1937 published 'Computable Numbers',  the conceptual foundation of the Turing Machine.  In 1938 he was one of the first mathematicians to join the team that was working on the German Enigma machine challenge. The day after the war began, he became full-time at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park.  Turing worked in Hut 8 and was in charge of the German naval code section.  There was no epiphany moment, but rather slow, increasing skill at deciphering that led to times of  full access to German signals. As they were part of the Secret Service, their information went directly to the PM and not to the various military branches. Churchill visited in the summer of 1941 and was introduced to Turing. "He used to refer to the Bletchley workers as the goose who laid the golden eggs and never cackled." A few months later, Turing wrote to Churchill and requested a significant increase in personnel and funding.   The PM's response was brief and to the point. He told his staff, "make sure they have all they want on extreme priority and report to me that this has been done."  By the middle of 1942, 50,000 decrypts per month were providing the British with the upper hand, which they and the Americans used to defeat the Afrika Korps and then win the Battle of the Atlantic. They maintained their advantage because, even when the Germans believed their positions had been exposed, they tended to blame it on Allied spying. They never would entertain that their signals had been intercepted. They had too much faith in Enigma. Alan then switched over to Hanslope to work on radio direction finders and voice encipherment. As the war wound down, Turing knew he could go back to Cambridge, but his horizons had expanded, he wanted to build a machine, a 'brain'.  He went to Manchester and here, once again, the author delves deeply, very deeply into the science and maths behind Turing's work. In early 1952, Alan made the mistake that would cost him his reputation and his life. He reported a petty burglary that had been committed by someone that he had sex with and then acknowledged it all in writing to the police. The naive genius was comfortable with his sexuality,  not at all ashamed, certainly aware that it was illegal to have 'indecent relations', but not that all hell would break loose.  Prosecuted and convicted, he opted for a year of chemical castration, rather than prison. When he came off probation in 1953, the Manchester University Council  voted  him a ten-year specially created Readership in the Theory of Computing.  A year later he took his life. "It seemed an isolated act of self-annihilation."  Turing's seminal role in the war came before the public sparingly in the 70's and then in the 90's a play and a tv movie brought him to wider acclaim. In 2009, PM Gordon Brown apologized for his mistreatment and the credits for the above-mentioned movie said that the Queen pardoned him in 2013.  As fine a book as this is, it is only for those with a strong scientific and mathematical curiosity.