Hoffman.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA (11/08/83)
Finally, there is a major biography of Alan Turing!
Alan Turing: The Enigma
by Andrew Hodges
$22.50 Simon & Schuster
ISBN 0-671-49207-1
The timing is right: His war-time work on the Enigma has now been
de-classified. His rather open homosexuality can be discussed in other
than damning terms these days. His mother passed away in 1976. (She
maintained that his death in 1954 was not suicide, but an accident, and
she never mentioned his sexuality nor his 1952 arrest.) And, of course,
the popular press is full of stories on AI, and they always bring up the
Turing Test.
The book is 529 pages, plus photographs, some diagrams, an author's note
and extensive bibliographic footnotes.
Doug Hofstadter's review of the book will appear in the New York Times
Book Review on November 13.
--Rodney Hoffman