ALAN TURING: The Enigma Man

Turing said 'If a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent.' Spring 1940, the Battle of the Atlantic rages. Vulnerable merchant convoys are at the mercy of German U-boats controlled by a cunning system of coded messages created by a machine called Enigma. Only one man believes that these codes can be broken - mathematician and Bletchley Park cryptanalyst Alan Turing. Winston Churchill later describe Turing's success in breaking the Enigma code as the single biggest contribution to the victory against Nazi Germany. Unheralded during his lifetime, he is now recognised as the father of modern computer science and as possessing one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. Here his ground-breaking work and his private side lifts the veil of secrecy, particularly with regard to his post-war contribution to computing science with the Americans and his work as Manchester Computing Machine Laboratory. Only in 1974 was the official ban on any mention of Ultra lifted. Watched by MI5, Turing died of cyanide poisoning. A vat of cyanide was found in the 'nightmare room' between his bedroom and the bathroom, and the coroner ruled that Turing had committed suicide 'while the balance of his mind was disturbed'. Yet no evidence was given about the state of his mind and the verdict has been questioned ever since. Slim illustrated biography, New full price paperback128pp.