Turing's Vision - The Birth of Computer Science

An accessible and fascinating exploration of how Alan Turing’s mathematical theory gave rise to modern computer science and applications—from the desktop to cell phones

In 1936, when he was just twenty-four years old, Alan Turing wrote a remarkable paper in which he outlined the theory of computation, laying out the ideas that underlie all modern computers. This groundbreaking and powerful theory now forms the basis of computer science. In Turing’s Vision, Chris Bernhardt explains the theory, Turing’s most important contribution, for the general reader. Bernhardt argues that the strength of Turing’s theory is its simplicity, and that, explained in a straightforward manner, it is eminently understandable by the non-specialist. As Marvin Minsky writes, “The sheer simplicity of the theory’s foundation and extraordinary short path from this foundation to its logical and surprising conclusions give the theory a mathematical bea