Research Catalog

The annotated Turing : a guided tour through Alan Turing's historic paper on computability and the Turing machine

Title

The annotated Turing : a guided tour through Alan Turing's historic paper on computability and the Turing machine / Charles Petzold.

Author

Petzold, Charles, 1953-

Publication

Indianapolis, IN : Wiley Pub., c2008.

Supplementary Content

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	JFE 15-3550	Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description

xii, 372 p. : ill.; 23 cm

Summary

Mathematician Alan Turing invented an imaginary computer known as the Turing Machine; in an age before computers, he explored the concept of what it meant to be computable, creating the field of computability theory in the process, a foundation of present-day computer programming. The book expands Turing's original 36-page paper with additional background chapters and extensive annotations; the author elaborates on and clarifies many of Turing's statements, making the original difficult-to-read document accessible to present day programmers, computer science majors, math geeks, and others. Interwoven into the narrative are the highlights of Turing's own life: his years at Cambridge and Princeton, his secret work in cryptanalysis during World War II, his involvement in seminal computer projects, his speculations about artificial intelligence, his arrest and prosecution for the crime of "gross indecency," and his early death by apparent suicide at the age of 41. - Publisher.

Subjects

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. [361]-365) and index.

Contents

This tomb holds Diophantus -- The irrational and the transcendental -- Centuries of progress -- The education of Alan Turing -- Machines at work -- Addition and multiplication -- Also known as subroutines -- Everything is a number -- The universal machine -- Computers and computability -- Of machines and men -- Logic and computability -- Computable functions -- The major proof -- The lambda calculus -- Conceiving the continuum -- Is everything a turing machine? -- The long sleep of Diophantus.

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