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The history of the computer is entwined with that of the modern world and most famously with the life of one man, Alan Turing. A machine unlike any other, this ‘electronic brain’ is of apparently universal application; yet paradoxically, given its almost infinite scope, it can only follow instructions. How did this device, which first appeared a mere 50 years ago, come to structure and dominate our lives so totally?

Turing, widely hailed as the man instrumental in breaking the Nazi Enigma code, is also regarded as the father of the modern computer. In this book, Jon Agar tells the fascinating history of the appearance of the universal machine: from the work of Charles Babbage in the 1820s and 30s, and the data-sorting nightmare of the 1890 American Census, to Turing’s formulation of a ‘computing machine’ designed to solve an infamous mathematical problem of his day, and his later explorations into Artificial Intelligence. Spurred on by the imperatives of the Second World War, the first commercial electronic computer was built in 1951 and nicknamed the ‘Blue Pig’. Yet Turing did not live long enough to celebrate its success. A victim of Cold War paranoia, his prosecution for homosexuality led to a severing of his connections with the British secret service, and shortly after to his suspected suicide in 1954.

Setting events in a rich historical context, Turing and the Universal Machine makes the development of the computer readily understandable but no less remarkable. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Excellent read for at least some, hopefully all
I picked this book up randomly at the library between classes. I only got about half way through before I had to leave but I made sure to tuck it away and finish it later that night. Excellent read for one sitting. Even if the author doesn't accurately present the true intentions and motivations behind Babbage and Turing's breakthroughs, he still manages to establish that computer science was an evolution of thought not some spontaneous stroke of brilliance. By the end of the book you feel a little starved for information but that is what makes this book such an excellent primer for additional reading on a number of subjects. This book really is a primer, don't read it if you have PHDs in history and computer science. I don't want to see Dr. whats his face giving this book half a star. It's a good book period.

Fine, as far as it goes
This book presents a credible history of the development of the modern computer, albeit through deeply-tinted, rose-colored spectacles. The treatment, though, is rather superficial, and this volume reads more like a juvenile history than a work for adults.

The author filters his story through the lens of a Dickensian view of industrial development. It would seem that the nineteenth century was a hellish world of alienated workers slaving like drones in chaotic, out-of-control facories that cried out for organization and control. This despite the fact that the nineteenth century saw the greatest increases in standards of living in history.

Curiously, the author confuses the nineteenth century quest for a universal computing maching with the eighteenth century quest for The Longitude. It would seem that the development of the computer was spurred on by the need to keep the Royal Navy off the rocks at the Isles of Scilly, a problem which had been resolved in the mid-eighteenth century by John Harrison's method of determining longitude, which required only relatively simple navigational computations. There is precious little discussion of the insurance industry, whose growth during the nineteenth century created a need for detailed and lengthy actuarial tables was the original impetus behind Charles Babbage's efforts to build a 'difference engine' in the nineteenth century.

The material on Turing and twentieth century work towards a universal computing machine is better. But even here, the author's biases show through. The material on the Nazi engineer Konrad Zuse isn't always covered in works of this sort. Yet Zuse is portrayed as "only a young engineer, in a lowly position in a large company..." (p. 45). This sort of thing has long since grown tiresome. One wishes the author would simply get on with the story.

Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of this history is the author's penchant for describing people as if they were computers. Right off the bat, the author characterizes us as living in a "two-tier modern world of general-and special-purpose humans...built in the nineteenth century." (p. 11) Or later, when the British civil service is described as being comprised of "generalist 'intellectuals' and rule-following 'mechanicals'..." (p. 143)

And therein lies the true theme of this book. We live in a two-class society, made up of intellectuals who think for us and the rest of us, who follow the rules they create. And we are all quite happily managed by the electronic computer. This thesis would be laughable if the author set it up as a straw-man, to then attack in moral outrage. But incredibly, Professor Agar seems to view it as the natural and desirable order of things. It makes for very interesting, if somewhat naive, reading.

If you have never read a history of computing and are interested in the subject, thenthis isn't really a bad book. It's just that there are so many books out there that are better than this one. I'd suggest a search on "computer history" here on Amazon. You will get a list of a dozen or so histories that tell the story with more distance and less bias than this volume.

Profound Ideas
This brief "history" is more of a thought-provoking analysis of the idea of computing than a recital of the crucial events leading to what we currently think of as a modern computer.Though it does provide some fascinating historical tidbits not found elsewhere, the power of this work lies in its discussion of the underlying theory of computing.For example, Mr. Agar's initial take on Babbage, i.e. that in designing the analytical engine he was merely recreating a manufacturing center, with which he was intimately familiar, is just the first of many profound observations that seem to be tossed off without further comment.Portraying Bletchley Park as a computer itself with the various huts being distributed processors was also a sound analogy and would be a tremendously effective segue into a story about the Internet.The story of Mr. Zuse's machine is likewise a fine example of Mr. Agar's thesis that the increase in computing power merely reflects the increasing complexity of our world.He raises a brilliantly multi-faceted what came first--chicken or egg--argument.Did complexity give birth to the computer or vice-versa?However, I think his ideas go well beyond that premise--though the comments on modern bureaucracy and corporate management were rather cryptic, isn't it true that in the world of "google" we are all distributed processors in a gigantic Universal Machine?

I am surprised that the author didn't fully develop the swiss knife analogy with which he began the book.In a real sense any stand-alone computer is a special purpose machine because it is limited by its user.It is only when programming is universally understood or, better yet, a transparent part of using the machine that we have a truly universal machine.And that is developing right under our noses--the internet has in just a few short years completely changed the educational experience (given the power of the internet my kids have never had to worry about not being able to find the right books in the local library), it has dramatically changed the marketplace (the most obscure books or materials are but a click away), it continues to redefine modern media (Drudge?) and to churn out innovation.But is the latest step towards a truly universal machine--the Internet--the result of society's changes or the cause?

We are blind to the significance of the computer because we are surrounded by its effects.Something huge is coming--the machine envisioned by Turing is still being developed--will we be ready for it, will we be able to understand its power, will we even recognize it when it arrives?

A good primer for the topic at hand
I was really hoping for a more detailed time line of the events leading upto the ENIGMA and what eventually lead to the first commercial computers during the late 50s and mid 60s. The author spent a great deal of time detailing the mathematical advances and controversies that spurred the technological advances we see today. Overall the book was mildly interesting, but probably not for the average reader. On the other end of the spectrum it was too much of a primer for anyone with some historical knowledge of mathematics and its part in developing computers.

Eccentric history of the modern computer
This curious little book is a pleasant read for those with a knowledge of the history of computers -- heaven knows what others will make of it! It begins with a brief survey of Charles Babbage, which is generally accurate. Followed by some excellent information on Hollerith and the history of punched cards. Agar then covers Konrad Zuse in much more detail than I've seen elsewhere. (Zuse is one of those computer pioneers who was lost to history for a bit and now rediscovered. He built computers in his living room to help design Nazi airplanes.) There follows a whirlwind tour of early American efforts by Aiken, Atanasoff and Mauchly.

Then things get strange as Agar jumps to an in-depth explanation of the basis of modern mathematics (way over my head) with a discussion of Hilbert, Godel, Riemann, Cantor, etc. The book then winds up with a discussion of Turing's contributions to mathematics and code breaking, with an overview of British code-breaking efforts and post-war computer development. All of this overlaid with some peculiar attempts to philosophize on the nature and future of computers.

Whew! You can't do justice to all this in a 150 page paperback, and he doesn't. But the book is well-written and travels down some less-traveled roads, so it's a fun read for computer folk. ... Read more

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Our hero is Turing, an interactive tutoring program and namesake (or virtual emanation?) of Alan Turing, World War II code breaker and father of computer science. In this unusual novel, Turing's idiosyncratic version of intellectual history from a computational point of view unfolds in tandem with the story of a love affair involving Ethel, a successful computer executive, Alexandros, a melancholy archaeologist, and Ian, a charismatic hacker. After Ethel (who shares her first name with Alan Turing's mother) abandons Alexandros following a sundrenched idyll on Corfu, Turing appears on Alexandros's computer screen to unfurl a tutorial on the history of ideas. He begins with the philosopher-mathematicians of ancient Greece -- "discourse, dialogue, argument, proof...can only thrive in an egalitarian society" -- and the Arab scholar in ninth-century Baghdad who invented algorithms; he moves on to many other topics, including cryptography and artificial intelligence, even economics and developmental biology. (These lessons are later critiqued amusingly and developed further in postings by a fictional newsgroup in the book's afterword.) As Turing's lectures progress, the lives of Alexandros, Ethel, and Ian converge in dramatic fashion, and the story takes us from Corfu to Hong Kong, from Athens to San Francisco -- and of course to the Internet, the disruptive technological and social force that emerges as the main locale and protagonist of the novel.Alternately pedagogical and romantic, Turing (A Novel about Computation) should appeal both to students and professionals who want a clear and entertaining account of the development of computation and to the general reader who enjoys novels of ideas. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

A little relationship failure, a little emotional angst and a great deal of explanation of the fundamentals of computation
Computation in computers and how it relates to the operations performed in the human brain are often equated, but largely without evidence that it is justified. Despite decades of research, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is still largely a speculative science and the human brain also remains a mystery.
In this novel, Papadimitriou takes an interesting approach to the task of explaining computation theory. The wrapper plot is based on three primary human characters, a computer executive named Ethel, Alexandros, an archeologist with a history of uncertain relationships and Ian, a computer hacker in both the sense of talent and willingness to enter computer systems. Ethel and Alexandros have a brief love entanglement, but when that ends when Ethel departs, Alexandros is in need of solace.
It is at this stage when the main character appears, a computer program called Turing, named of course after the British mathematical genius Alan Turing. Turing is extremely intelligent and begins a series of online lectures to Alexandros about the history of computing, starting at the time when abstract mathematics made its' first appearance. Turing is a very good lecturer, able to bring the topic down to the level of Alexandros, playing the role of a facade for the general reader. The explanations are excellent, well within the level of understanding of the general reader.
The novel form, with a little bit of love lost, a little bit of science lost and a great deal of understanding about computation gained, is done very well. This is one of the few fiction books that could find a legitimate place in an upper level computer science course.

Boring though educative
This novel tried to imitate the famous "Sophie's World" in computation. As long the pedagogy is concerned this novel passed the test favorably, but as the fiction is concerned it failed miserably. The story doesn't flow at all. Too much vagueness everywhere. Its a story about too smart people, no place for average people - a weird juxtaposition. The idea of adding in appendix a blog that clarifies some of the ideas mentioned in the text is superb indeed. But overall it is a failed attempt to write a novel by a very accomplished textbook author.

Don't get this if you're interested in computation, and don't get it if you aren't.
This is a rather bland novel interspersed with a very rudimentary introduction to computer science, starting with the basic operation of semiconductors and working up to operating systems, applications, and AI, all at a very superficial and occasionally inaccurate level.

A Novel Approach to Fiction
I loved this book, I first heard about it when Papadimitriou gave a guest-lecture at my school on the application of game theory to the study of the evolution of the internet.Much of the story involves tutoring sessions between Turing and Alaxendros while in the background a story evolves.There are some interesting aspects to this book that set it apart from most fiction I've read, for example, there are citations scattered about which point to transcripts from a fictional newsgroup discussion.I found this approach to be much more pleasing than footnotes explaining back story.(...)

Bravo !
A must read for computer science. I love the way how Chritos explain the theories of math and cs. The book is extremely fun to read. Great book. ... Read more

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Hardbound. ... Read more

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I SIN EVERY NUMBER By Jason Earls Computer problems. We've all had them and they're always a pain. Sabrina, a freelance programmer, has recently been experiencing computer problems worse than any she's ever had. Disturbing messages and eerie text. She doesn't know if they're merely a practical joke or actual signals from another solar system. But she's determined to find out. And Dr. Mwang is no help. He's Sabrina's best friend as well as a supergenius, but she doesn't understand why he refuses to investigate her problem and why his attitude toward her has suddenly changed...MANUFACTURED by Jason Rogers ...is a partially manufactured novel about the end of the world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Avant-garde Cyberpunk Potpourri
This book is freaking awesome! I could really identify with Sabrina -- the main character in the I Sin Every Number half of the novel -- and the problems she was having.

Yes, to apreciate this book you should probably have a little experience with experimental fiction (Burroughs, Barthelme, Acker) before going in. There are chapters here that were obviously generated by computer programs, but Christ you don't have to read each word of them before going on to the next "straight" portion of the novel; just let your eyes skim and wander through the text and get the feel of the semi-poetic nature of the machine-based prose that Sabrina was seeing on her computer screen. I believe the author was attempting to immerse the reader in Sabrina's world so they could see the scary messages she was getting. It's a cool idea! If you tried to read every word of the experimental stuff, of course it would be tedious, but when it gets too much just continue on to the next "story" chapter.

This novel is avant-garde, adventurous writing at its best. The characters are interesting and well-developed, and there are even quite a few humorous incidents in the book. Don't be a square. Be bold and pick up this novel and maybe a few mighty forces will come to your aid while you're reading it.

Also be sure to check out the 'Note From the Author' at the very end! I've never seen anything like it before.

Utter drivel
The other review here dismisses the book based on the title. Sadly, I have bought a copy of this book and that writer's suspicions are completely justified. It is a combination of tedious 'cut-up' i.e. random nonsense and typical 'look at me I'm so sensitive and artistic' stuff about self-harm.
It is unreadable and frankly after a short while I stopped trying.

Well, if CORY DOCTOROW likes the title, that's good enough for me!!!!
Actually, perhaps not.

The title is enough to give a jobbing programmer a spontaneous fistula. Matters aren't helped much by Amazon's (apparent) mistranscription.

Maybe the authors are trying for "dumb people will think it's clever; clever people will think it's a parody of dumb", cf SugarApe magazine in "Nathan Barley". The fact that CORY DOCTOROW thinks it's clever gets us half-way there, but the clever people I've shown the title to think it's just broken. So, overall, a loss. ... Read more

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This brief text assists students in understanding Turing's philosophy and thinking so they can more fully engage in useful, intelligent class dialogue and improve their understanding of course content. Part of the Wadsworth Notes Series, (which will eventually consist of approximately 100 titles, each focusing on a single "thinker" from ancient times to the present), ON TURING is written by a philosopher deeply versed in the philosophy of this key thinker. Like other books in the series, this concise book offers sufficient insight into the thinking of a notable philosopher, better enabling students to engage in reading and to discuss the material in class and on paper. ... Read more

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Chapters: Alan Turing, Marvin Minsky, Seymour Papert, Joseph Weizenbaum, Kevin Warwick, Raymond Kurzweil, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Douglas Lenat, Gerald Jay Sussman, John Searle, John F. Sowa, Hugo de Garis, Richard Greenblatt, Richard Stallman, Jorn Barger, Rosalind Picard, Peter Nordin, J. C. R. Licklider, I. J. Good, David Levy, David S. Touretzky, Lotfi Asker Zadeh, Yorick Wilks, John Mccarthy, Joshua Lederberg, Paul Jorion, Alberto Broggi, William Ross Ashby, Aaron Sloman, Leonid Perlovsky, Jürgen Schmidhuber, Hal Abelson, Jeff Hawkins, Rodney Brooks, Allan M. Collins, Siavash Haroun Mahdavi, Raj Reddy, Roger Schank, David Marr, Richard P. Gabriel, David Cope, Ernst Dickmanns, Peter J. Bentley, Cynbe Ru Taren, Terry Winograd, Andy Clark, Jeff Black, Sebastian Thrun, Amy L. Lansky, Judea Pearl, Chris Mckinstry, Ben Goertzel, Hans Moravec, Nils Nilsson, Ronald C. Arkin, Jonathan Schaeffer, Frank Dellaert, Sven Koenig, Avinash Kak, James Hendler, Ashwin Ram, Katia Sycara, Mark A. O'neill, Robby Garner, Yann Lecun, Arthur Samuel, Steven Ericsson-Zenith, Ayanna M. Howard, Wally Feurzeig, Igor Aleksander, Wolfram Burgard, Drew Mcdermott, Tomaso Poggio, Ron Sun, Boris Katz, Jack Minker, Hartmut Neven, Richard Fikes, Michael Deering, Ruzena Bajcsy, Peter Norvig, Jacek M. Zurada, Mark Steedman, Austin Tate, Scott Fahlman, Michael Witbrock, Alan Bundy, John Joseph Hopfield, Edward Feigenbaum, Michael Georgeff, Frank Van Harmelen, Bart Selman, Bernhard Nebel, Aravind Joshi, Manuela M. Veloso, Stan Franklin, Alok R. Chaturvedi, Justine Cassell, Geoffrey Hinton, Margaret Boden, Brian D. Ripley, Steve Omohundro, Leonard Uhr, Steve Grand, Deborah Mcguinness, Josh Bongard, Victor Allis, John Yen, Gary Drescher, Hector Levesque, David Vernon, Oliver Selfridge, Alan Mackworth, Robert Hecht-Nielsen, Bruce Wilcox, Raymond Reiter, William G. Harless, Joseph Halpern, Charles Rosen, Kjartan Ólafsson, Patrick Winston, Ronald J. Brachman, Stott Parker...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=25984 ... Read more

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Chapters: John Forbes Nash, Jr., Alan Turing, Frances Farmer, Vladimir Bukovsky, Larisa Arap, Rosemary Kennedy, Valeria Novodvorskaya, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Alexander Esenin-Volpin, Pyotr Grigorenko, Leonard Roy Frank, Aaron Soltz, George, Crown Prince of Serbia, Ted Chabasinski, Linda Andre, Juli Lawrence, Vasile Paraschiv, Viktor Nekipelov. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 105. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS (pronounced ; 23 June 1912 7 June 1954), was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist. He was influential in the development of computer science and providing a formalisation of the concept of the algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, playing a significant role in the creation of the modern computer. During the Second World War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre. For a time he was head of Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the method of the bombe, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine. After the war he worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he created one of the first designs for a stored-program computer, the ACE. Towards the end of his life Turing became interested in chemistry. He wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis, and he predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the BelousovZhabotinsky reaction, which were first observed in the 1960s. Turing's homosexuality resulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952homosexual acts were illegal in the United Kingdom at that timeand he accepted treatment with female hormones, chemical castration, as an alternative to priso...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=1208 ... Read more

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Chapters: Isaac Newton, Alan Turing, Bertrand Russell, Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, J. J. Thomson, Andrew Wiles, John Horton Conway, Paul Dirac, Edmond Halley, Roger Penrose, Freeman Dyson, Alfred North Whitehead, George Boole, Oliver Heaviside, Christopher Wren, G. H. Hardy, Ronald Fisher, Max Newman, Isaac Barrow, Edward Waring, Thomas Bayes, William Mccrea, Karl Pearson, John Edensor Littlewood, Thomas Bradwardine, Peter Barlow, Emery Molyneux, Edward Wright, Robert Hues, John Dee, John Couch Adams, Lewis Fry Richardson, John Wallis, William Penney, Baron Penney, George Peacock, George Green, Thomas Harriot, Baden Powell, I. J. Good, John Dawson, Thomas Blundeville, James Jurin, William Oughtred, William Whiston, Douglas Hartree, Ian Stewart, John Kingman, Maurice Kendall, Shahn Majid, Conway Berners-Lee, E. T. Whittaker, Roger Cotes, William Hopkins, James Hopwood Jeans, Timothy Gowers, John Gough, Geoffrey Ingram Taylor, David Cox, Dorothy Maud Wrinch, Alan Baker, Jonas Moore, John Nunn, Harold Jeffreys, Shaun Wylie, Sydney Chapman, William Leybourn, Edward Arthur Milne, George Walker, Alan M. Frieze, Henry Briggs, Ernest William Barnes, John Collins, Harold Scott Macdonald Coxeter, Daniel Pedoe, Richard of Wallingford, Leonard Digges, William Gascoigne, Joseph Proudman, John Holwell, Isaac Milner, William Crabtree, Thomas Lydiat, Peter Swinnerton-Dyer, George Darwin, John Hymers, G. Spencer-Brown, Harry Bateman, Charles Hutton, David Spiegelhalter, Edmund Wingate, James Dodson, Frank Adams, Richard V. Southwell, Nicholas Saunderson, Edward Brerewood, John Fletcher Moulton, Baron Moulton, Jonathan Mestel, Samuel Morland, James Cockle, Frank Kelly, Samuel Foster, Graham Nelson, Bill Parry, Robert Smith, Owen Saunders, Ronald Rivlin, Wendy Hall, Ben J. Green, George Barker Jeffery, Walter Warner, Eaton Hodgkinson, David George Kendall, Robert Leslie Ellis, Hertha Marks Ayrton, Ruth Lawrence, Bernard de Neumann, Tom Willm...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=14627 ... Read more

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Der Erwerb des Buches enthält gleichzeitig die kostenlose Mitgliedschaft im Buchklub des Verlags zum Ausprobieren - dort können Sie von über einer Million Bücher ohne weitere Kosten auswählen. Das Buch besteht aus Wikipedia-Artikeln: Alan Turing, Manfred Eigen, Richard Dawkins, Alfred Lotka, Jakob Johann von Uexküll, Aubrey de Grey, Humberto Maturana, William D. Hamilton, J. B. S. Haldane, George R. Price, John Maynard Smith, Julius Schaxel, Francisco Varela, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Ronald Aylmer Fisher, Sewall Wright, Peter Schuster, Werner Reichardt, Arthur Winfree, Stuart Kauffman, Robert May, Karl Sigmund, Benjamin Gompertz, David Berlinski, Eörs Szathmáry, Martin Mahner, Bernd-Olaf Küppers, Brian Goodwin, James D. Murray, Holk Cruse, Nicolas Rashevsky, Hans Joachim Jesdinsky, Michael R. Rose, Robert MacArthur, Hans Meinhardt, Christopher Langton, Werner von Seelen, Thomas S. Ray, Aristid Lindenmayer, Raymond Pearl,. Online finden Sie die kostenlose Aktualisierung der Bücher. Nicht dargestellt. Auszug: Jakob Johann Baron von Uexküll (* 8. September 1864 auf Gut Keblas, (estnisch: Keblaste), Dorf Mihkli, heute zu Koonga, Estland; † 25. Juli 1944 auf Capri) war ein Biologe und Philosoph und einer der wichtigsten Zoologen des 20. Jahrhunderts. Uexküll entwickelte das Grundgerüst der Biosemiotik, die Leben als biologische Zeichen- und Kommunikationsprozesse versteht. Er führte den Begriff der Umwelt in die Biologie ein und gilt damit als Wegbereiter der Ökologie. Er war ein wichtiger Pionier der theoretischen Biologie, der Kybernetik, der Semiotik, der Physiologie, und der wissenschaftstheoretischen Linie des radikalen Konstruktivismus. Sein Sohn Thure von Uexküll (1908-2004) war einer der wichtigsten psychosomatischen Mediziner. Der Stifter des Alternativen Nobelpreises, Jakob von Uexküll (* 1944), ist sein Enkel. Jakob mit seinem Sohn Thure in Putzar, Sommer 1915 Jakob von Uexküll (1864-1944) Zirkuläre Feedback-Schemas des W...http://booksllc.net/?l=de&id=203452 ... Read more

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Chapters: Alan Turing, Herbert Simon, Seymour Papert, Lisp Machine, Eliza, Warren Sturgis Mcculloch, Shrdlu, Gerald Jay Sussman, Planner, Turing Test, Timeline of Artificial Intelligence, Ai Winter, Ray Solomonoff, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, History of Artificial Life, History of Machine Translation, Fifth Generation Computer, Dendral, John Mccarthy, Mit Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Ai@50, Logic Theorist, William Grey Walter, Allen Newell, Information Processing Language, Roger Schank, Freddy Ii, David Marr, Strips, Mycin, Donald Michie, Walter Pitts, Arthur Samuel, William James Lectures, Lawrence J. Fogel, Frank Rosenblatt, Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation, David Rumelhart, Strategic Computing Initiative, Knowledge Sharing Effort, Darwin Among the Machines, John Joseph Hopfield, Edward Feigenbaum, Dartmouth Conferences, Xcon, Parry, Darwin Machine, Ratio Club, Oliver Selfridge, Shakey the Robot, Freehal, General Problem Solver, Patrick Winston, Lighthill Report, Ai Memo, Advice Taker, Pandemonium Architecture, Daniel G. Bobrow, Scripts, Alpac, Alvey, Frame, Blocks World, Paul Werbos, Cliff Shaw, Student, Snarc. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 361. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The history of artificial intelligence began in antiquity, with myths, stories and rumors of artificial beings endowed with intelligence or consciousness by master craftsmen; as Pamela McCorduck writes, AI began with "an ancient wish to forge the gods." The seeds of modern AI were planted by classical philosophers who attempted to describe the process of human thinking as the mechanical manipulation of symbols. This work culminated in the invention of the programmable digital computer in the 1940s, a machine based on the abstract essence of mat...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=2894560 ... Read more

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Les achats comprennent une adhésion à l'essai gratuite au club de livres de l'éditeur, dans lequel vous pouvez choisir parmi plus d'un million d'ouvrages, sans frais. Le livre consiste d'articles Wikipedia sur : John Von Neumann, Alan Turing, Donald Knuth, Kurt Gödel, Claude Shannon, Haskell Curry, Seymour Papert, Richard Hamming, John Horton Conway, Alonzo Church, Doron Zeilberger, George Dantzig, Richard Karp, Joseph Sifakis, Marcel-Paul Schützenberger, Leslie Lamport, Giuseppe Longo, Robin Milner, Myron Tribus, Maurice Nivat, Charles Antony Richard Hoare, James Pustejovsky, Stephen Cook, Bernd Sturmfels, Juris Hartmanis, Emil Post, Dana S. Scott, Jean-Louis Krivine, Carl Adam Petri, Johan Håstad, Richard Stearns, David Gelernter, Pierre Lescanne, Corrado Böhm, Warren Weaver, Jean-Pierre Jouannaud, Jacques Mazoyer, Shmuel Winograd, Géraud Sénizergues, Rudolf Bayer. Non illustré. Mises à jour gratuites en ligne. Extrait : John von Neumann (né Neumann János, 1903-1957), mathématicien et physicien américain d'origine hongroise, a apporté d'importantes contributions tant en mécanique quantique, qu'en analyse fonctionnelle, en théorie des ensembles, en informatique, en sciences économiques ainsi que dans beaucoup d'autres domaines des mathématiques et de la physique. Il a de plus participé aux programmes militaires américains. Benjamin d'une fratrie de trois, il s'appelle tout d'abord Neumann János Lajos (les Hongrois placent les noms de famille en tête) à Budapest en Autriche-Hongrie. Il est le fils de Neumann Miksa (Max Neumann), un avocat-banquier, et de Kann Margit (Marguerite Kann). Il ne prête guère attention à ses origines juives, sinon pour son répertoire de blagues. János est un enfant prodige : à six ans, il converse avec son père en grec ancien et peut mentalement faire la division d'un nombre à huit chiffres. Une anecdote rapporte qu'à huit ans, il a déjà lu les quarante-quatre volumes de l'histoire universelle de la bi...http://booksllc.net/?l=fr ... Read more

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Der Erwerb des Buches enthält gleichzeitig die kostenlose Mitgliedschaft im Buchklub des Verlags zum Ausprobieren - dort können Sie von über einer Million Bücher ohne weitere Kosten auswählen. Das Buch besteht aus Wikipedia-Artikeln: Alan Turing, Ernest Rutherford, Hans Bethe, William Lawrence Bragg, Niels Bohr, Carl Joachim Friedrich, Louis Mordell, Otto Skutsch, Samuel Edwards, Brian Cox, Alexander Robertus Todd, Maurice Bartlett, John Frederick Dewey, Dennis Sharp, Ian Macdonald, Brian Flowers, Baron Flowers, Ian Kershaw, William Waterhouse, Richard C. Harrington, Ian Steedman, Tom Kirkwood, Anthony R. Birley, George Herbert Bailey, Peter Worsley, Derek Bowett, Barry Cooper, Samuel Alexander, Peter Whittle, Léon Rosenfeld, Alex Wilkie, David Bain, Jeff Paris, Henry Alexander Miers, John Andrew Boyle, Max Gluckman, Sheila Rowbotham, Ferdynand Zweig, Patricia Duncker, Werner Müller, Peter Aczel, Terence Greaves,. Online finden Sie die kostenlose Aktualisierung der Bücher. Nicht dargestellt. Auszug: Alan Mathison Turing (* 23. Juni 1912 in London; † 7. Juni 1954 in Wilmslow, Cheshire) war ein britischer Logiker, Mathematiker und Kryptoanalytiker. Er gilt heute als einer der einflussreichsten Theoretiker der frühen Computerentwicklung und Informatik. Turing schuf einen großen Teil der theoretischen Grundlagen für die moderne Informations- und Computertechnologie. Als richtungsweisend erwiesen sich auch seine Beiträge zur theoretischen Biologie. Das von ihm entwickelte Berechenbarkeitsmodell der Turingmaschine bildet eines der Fundamente der theoretischen Informatik. Während des Zweiten Weltkrieges war er maßgeblich an der Entzifferung der mit der Enigma verschlüsselten deutschen Funksprüche beteiligt. Der Großteil seiner Arbeiten blieb nach Kriegsende jedoch unter Verschluss. Turing entwickelte 1953 eines der ersten Schachprogramme, dessen Berechnungen er mangels Hardware selbst durchführte. Nach ihm benannt ist der Turing Award, ...http://booksllc.net/?l=de&id=121 ... Read more

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Chapters: Murdered Scientists, Scientists Who Committed Suicide, Alan Turing, Archimedes, Jurij Vega, Paul Ehrenfest, Gerald Bull, Lawrence Kohlberg, Dian Fossey, Geoffrey Pyke, Bruce Edwards Ivins, David Kelly, Michael Servetus, Robert Fitzroy, Ludwig Boltzmann, Arnold Berliner, Farmville Murders, Bruno Bettelheim, George de Mohrenschildt, James E. Mcdonald, Wallace Carothers, Stefan Marinov, Hermann Emil Fischer, Murder of Annie Le, Michel Gauquelin, Denice Denton, Eugene Marais, Hans Berger, Nicholas Hughes, Viktor Meyer, Franz Nopcsa Von Felső-Szilvás, George R. Price, Paul Kammerer, Moritz Schlick, Percy Williams Bridgman, Garrett Hardin, Eugene Mallove, Clemens Von Pirquet, Andreas Floer, Chris Mckinstry, John Howard Northrop, G. K. Podila, Daniel Mcfarlan Moore, Hermann Von Barth, Valeri Legasov, Paul Drude, Andrew E. Lange, Clara Immerwahr, Augustus Matthiessen, Hans Fischer, Robert Schommer, David Webster, Lucy D'escoffier Crespo Da Silva, Rudolph Schoenheimer, Nicolas Leblanc, Pavel Tichý, George Washington Vanderbilt Iii, Heydar Huseynov, Max Rothmann, William Liley, Edgar Zilsel, Viktor Tausk, Alfred Witte, Karel Deleeuw, James Smith, Larry Ford, Karl Wilhelm Verhoeff, Julius Tafel, Orville Adalbert Derby, Otto Hönigschmid, Adolphe D'archiac, William Wallace Campbell, Oldfield Thomas, Buell Quain, Campbell R. Bridges, Basilis C. Xanthopoulos, Josef Ladislav Píč, Kunihiko Hashida, Yehia El-Mashad. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 430. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Archimedes of Syracuse (Greek: ; c. 287 BC c. 212 BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=1844 ... Read more

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Les achats comprennent une adhésion à l'essai gratuite au club de livres de l'éditeur, dans lequel vous pouvez choisir parmi plus d'un million d'ouvrages, sans frais. Le livre consiste d'articles Wikipedia sur : Alan Turing, James Madison, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Woodrow Wilson, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Donald Rumsfeld, Joel et Ethan Coen, Wentworth Miller, Gary Becker, Eugene O'neill, Brooke Shields, David Duchovny, Daniel Kahneman, Dean Cain, Michelle Obama, Michael Spence, Steven Weinberg, Marvin Minsky, Allen Dulles, Charles Conrad, John Bardeen, Arthur Compton, Robert Hofstadter, Steve Forbes, John T. Tate, Edwin Mcmillan, Richard Smalley, Elena Kagan, Nathan Jacobson, John B. Taylor, Barry Mccrea, Jeff Bezos, John George Kemeny, Bruce Greenwald. Non illustré. Mises à jour gratuites en ligne. Extrait : John Fitzgerald Kennedy (29 mai 1917 - 22 novembre 1963) est le 35 président des États-Unis. Entré en fonction le 20 janvier 1961, à l'âge de 43 ans, il est assassiné le 22 novembre 1963, à l'âge de 46 ans. Plus jeune président élu, il est aussi le plus jeune à mourir en cours de mandat, assassiné moins de trois ans après son entrée à la Maison Blanche. Il reste en 2010 le seul président américain de religion catholique. En raison de son énergie, de son charisme, de son style et de ses qualités présumées de chef pendant la Guerre froide, mais aussi en raison de son assassinat, JFK reste l'un des personnages les plus populaires du siècle, tandis que son assassinat reste pour beaucoup un mystère des plus controversés. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, surnommé « Jack », est né le 29 mai 1917 à Brookline, Massachusetts, une banlieue huppée de Boston. Il est le second d'une famille qui compte neuf enfants. Ses parents, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, qui a fait fortune dans les années 1930, et Rose Fitzgerald, fille du maire de Boston, sont les descendants de familles originaires d'Irlande. Son père soutient Franklin Delano Roosevelt lors de l'éle...http://booksllc.net/?l=fr ... Read more

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Chapters: Alan Turing, John Von Neumann, Steve Wozniak, Seymour Cray, Konrad Zuse, J. Presper Eckert, John Mauchly, Butler Lampson, John Vincent Atanasoff, Steve Jobs, Alan Kotok, Bernard Marshall Gordon, W. Daniel Hillis, Maurice Wilkes, Donald B. Gillies, Gordon Bell, William Goddard, Peter Samson, John L. Hennessy, Steve Furber, David Patterson, Charles P. Thacker, Stan Frankel, John Pinkerton, Srinidhi Varadarajan, Daniel Kottke, David May, Sergei Alekseyevich Lebedev, John Cocke, Boris Babaian, Justin Rattner, Harry Huskey, Masatoshi Shima, James R. Goodman, Mark Carlson, John Fairclough, Steve Chen, Bob Colwell, Robert J. Mical, Michael Dhuey, Robert Brunner. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 239. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is an American business magnate, and the co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple. Jobs also previously served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, following the acquisition of Pixar by Disney. In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula, and others, designed, developed, and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven graphical user interface which lead to the creation of the Macintosh. After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher education and business markets. Apple's subsequent 1996 buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he has served as its CEO since 1997. In 1986, he acquire...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=7412236 ... Read more

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Les achats comprennent une adhésion à l'essai gratuite au club de livres de l'éditeur, dans lequel vous pouvez choisir parmi plus d'un million d'ouvrages, sans frais. Le livre consiste d'articles Wikipedia sur : Alan Turing, François Viète, Leon Battista Alberti, Johannes Trithemius, Herbert Yardley, John Wilkins, Giambattista Della Porta, David Kahn, Jacques Stern, Georges Painvin, Jacques Aleaume, Agnes Meyer Driscoll, Marian Rejewski, Rossignol, Bruce Schneier, Éric Filiol, Gilles Brassard, James Ellis, Don Coppersmith, Auguste Kerckhoffs, Serge Humpich, Étienne Bazeries, Leonard Adleman, William F. Friedman, Jean-Jacques Quisquater, Antoine Joux, Jennifer Seberry, Edward Hugh Hebern, James Massey, Philip Zimmermann, Blaise de Vigenère, Harry Golombek, Charles Barbier de La Serre, Whitfield Diffie, Vincent Rijmen, Ronald Rivest, Phong Nguyen, Timothy C. May, Arjen Lenstra, Claude Crépeau, David Wagner, Ann Z. Caracristi, Ralph Merkle, Martin Hellman, Serge Vaudenay, Taher Elgamal, Joan Daemen, Horst Feistel, Dmitry Sklyarov, Friedrich Kasiski, Henryk Zygalski, Daniel J. Bernstein, Eli Biham, Lars Knudsen, Ian Goldberg, David Naccache, Hans Dobbertin, Elizebeth Friedman, Giovan Battista Bellaso, Jerzy Różycki, Wang Xiaoyun, Robert Mceliece, William Gordon Welchman, Bart Preneel, Charles H. Bennett, Xuejia Lai, Mitsuru Matsui, Arne Beurling, Nicolas Courtois, Douglas Stinson, Niels Ferguson, Jon Callas, Neal Koblitz, Paulo Barreto, Alex Biryukov, Paul Kocher, Ivan Damgård, Oded Goldreich, John Kelsey, Alexander Klimov, Yiqun Lisa Yin, Cryptanalyste, Cryptographe, Josef Pieprzyk, Carlisle Adams, Stafford Tavares, Michael Shub. Non illustré. Mises à jour gratuites en ligne. Extrait : François Viète, ou François Viette, en latin , est un mathématicien français, né à Fontenay-le-Comte (Vendée) en 1540 et mort à Paris le 23 février 1603. De famille bourgeoise et de formation juridique, il a été l'avocat de grandes familles protest...http://booksllc.net/?l=fr ... Read more

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Chapters: Alan Turing. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 117. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS (pronounced ; 23 June 1912 7 June 1954), was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist. He was influential in the development of computer science and providing a formalisation of the concept of the algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, playing a significant role in the creation of the modern computer. During the Second World War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre. For a time he was head of Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the method of the bombe, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine. After the war he worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he created one of the first designs for a stored-program computer, the ACE. Towards the end of his life Turing became interested in chemistry. He wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis, and he predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the BelousovZhabotinsky reaction, which were first observed in the 1960s. Turing's homosexuality resulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952homosexual acts were illegal in the United Kingdom at that timeand he accepted treatment with female hormones, chemical castration, as an alternative to prison. He died in 1954, several weeks before his 42nd birthday, from an apparently self-administered cyanide poisoning, although his mother (and some others) considered his death to be accidental. On 10 September 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behal...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=1208 ... Read more

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Chapters: Turing Machine, Church-turing Thesis, Turing Award, Turing Test, History of the Church-turing Thesis, Banburismus, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, I. J. Good, Turing Reduction, Automatic Computing Engine, Reverse Turing Test, Description Number, National Physical Laboratory, Alan Turing Memorial, Symmetric Turing Machine, Unorganized Machine, Breaking the Code, Church-turing-deutsch Principle, Christopher Morcom. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 173. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The Turing test is a proposal for a test of a machine's ability to demonstrate intelligence. It proceeds as follows: a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with one human and one machine, each of which tries to appear human. All participants are placed in isolated locations. If the judge cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test. In order to test the machine's intelligence rather than its ability to render words into audio, the conversation is limited to a text-only channel such as a computer keyboard and screen. The test was proposed by Alan Turing in his 1950 paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence, which opens with the words: "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'" Since "thinking" is difficult to define, Turing chooses to "replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words." Turing's new question is: "Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the "? This question, Turing believed, is one that can actually be answered. In the remainder of the paper, he argued against all the major objections to this proposition. In the years since 1950, the test has proven to be both highly influential and widely criticized, and...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=21391751 ... Read more