The Enigma Man

“Alan Turing – The Enigma Man” by Nigel Cawthorne is the latest in the long line of Turing-themed books i’ve been delving into recently so, here we go again!

I went into this book with some trepidation because the last Turing book i read that wasn’t by Andrew Hodges or Jack Copeland left me rather disappointed. (The Big Idea: Turing and the Computer by Paul Strathern. I wrote about it HERE). But actually i was very pleasantly surprised.

It’s by no means a long book, but it gets everything in. In fact i’d certainly recommend it if you’re looking to learn about Turing but not to the detailed extent of reading books by Hodges or Copeland. It’s not exactly an original book, you can tell Cawthorne has taken his information from other available sources but i think he’s created something that many people may actually seek out which is a brief overview of Alan Turing’s life and work. There’s a good numbers of chapters each split up into little sub-sections. It gives you the important points and often says “this is what happened then”, “then because of this that happened”, “by doing this they did that” no wild tangents, no pages and pages of context or details just that.

However! Don’t take this to mean it’s just a big stream of boring facts with no emotion behind it because that’s not true. We still get a few fun anecdotes and personality quirks and the important people around him get mentioned where appropriate.

It’s difficult to fully explain but as someone who has read the biographies by both Andrew Hodges and Jack Copeland this book pleased me. I felt like it got everything in there you would want to tell if you were giving an overview of Turing and his work and you still got a sense of the important moments in his life.

After the last book i was sort of semi fact-checking as i read but as far as i can see everything matched up to what i have read from other sources. There is one TINY moment in the final chapter when someone is quoted from the 1970’s in a passage that implies that Colossus was used to crack ENIGMA codes which is incorrect, but that is the mistake of the person quoted and not the author.

What is quite unique to this book though is the final chapter dedicated to saying how and through what means Alan Turing’s story bled out into the public eye. From a few published papers to the Hodges Biography and the Hugh Whitemore play. It even references “The Imitation Game” film as this version was published in 2014.

Overall, i’d recommend this book to anyone who wants to know about Turing but sees the brick sized biography of Andrew Hodges and withdraws in terror. There is the Copeland biography of course (which i wrote about HERE) especially if his work is the main focus of your interest. Maybe you want to spread the word of this wonderful man to a friend but not by giving them something too overwhelming.

Alan Turing – The Enigma

Okay, it has taken me an embarrassingly long time but today I finally finished “Alan Turing – The Enigma” the biography by Andrew Hodges. What a journey!

The first thing you’ll no doubt notice is that this book I pretty long. It certainly is, and quite heavy on the detail! But hey, maybe that’s your thing. (If it’s not..do give it a chance..it’s not mine either).

I sort of had to think of it as one long continuous chapter, it is over 500 pages split into 6 chapters so they can feel pretty long if you’re trying to get to the end of one, and I also didn’t feel every chapter had an obvious stop and start point content wise. Not a complaint just an observation.

One thing I had to accept and get over pretty quickly was that there was no way I was going to understand everything that was talked about in this book. This niggles at my brain a bit because I like to understand what I’m reading about especially if it’s something I’m interested in but even as a maths graduate I knew I had no chance. I was quite reluctant to skim read though because I’d usually try that and suddenly find something interesting and have to go back to pay more attention to the context!

It was lovely to come across some familiar maths-y names and terms though, however traumatised their work or application may have left me after university. But don’t worry! I don’t think it gave me much of an advantage other than maybe better understanding a briefly mentioned mathematical method or piece of notation, but nothing you needed to know to understand about Turing.

Anyway, the book.

As I say, it’s pretty heavy on the detail but this is really fantastic for giving a wider context surrounding the range of events. It may feel a bit “going off on a tangent” at times but it always comes back to Turing, often with his place in or perception of what is being discussed. (It also helps a lot if you find a particular section interesting and want to find out more – lots of detail already there to grab hold of).

The book is so well researched! The ‘Author’s Note’ at the end gives some indication of the process of this but the attention to detail is clear throughout. You get such fine, intimate details that sometimes you wonder how we can know something so exact but the tone of the book makes you fully believe in its truth.

Andrew Hodges is certainly an ideal person to have written this book. As a fellow and tutor in mathematics at Oxford University (you can visit his website HERE) he is clearly very intelligent and has an amazing understanding of the work he is writing about, which I think I certainly needed in order to get it across as accurately and thoughtfully as he does.

This also allows Hodges to give a really useful sort of “outside observation” of what could have been implied by situations or what comments/letters were in reference to.

All of the snippet reviews on the back of this book describe it as “sympathetic” which now I come to think about it really is the best word to use. It gives us facts and events with a wholly rounded view from many different perspectives and takes into account possible emotions involved. As someone who has taken on trying to figure out Alan Turing’s character in as much detail as possible, the sort of “observer” comments given on how he could have felt about or perceived something seem honest and justified whilst by no means expressing them as fact.

It truly is a beautiful account of Turing’s life and work. I especially enjoyed the sections about Turing as a young boy, what a lovely little lad. I didn’t feel like I was reading a list of regurgitated facts about any old important historical figure from the bias of today’s knowledge and attitude, I felt I was gaining as close to a true understanding of this man as I could, with context reflecting the world and it’s changes over time.

In the end, Andrew Hodges can only find what the rest of us could if we looked hard enough. Backed up by the solid tone of open-mindedness, respect and empathy throughout, we can only trust that through his thorough research and hearing of personal accounts that his interpretation of character is, at least for now, as accurate and as much as we’ll get.

Anyone who says they know for sure what Alan Turing was like or why he did anything is wrong. Even history and those who knew him personally can only be so accurate. No one could have known him fully, especially considering the mysterious (or perhaps a better word is ‘internal’) way in which he kept some parts of his life – and rightly so. None of us share the entirety of our thoughts and feelings even with those closest to us.

So you may finish this book and, like me initially, selfishly wish there were more elements of closure. You may not feel as if you have a complete understanding of this man and his work, or his character or his motives, but you will have to be satisfied that it is possibly the best you’ll get, because let’s face it, the man and his super brain were pretty complicated. Besides, what you do get is pretty darn wonderful.

Alan Turing’s life remains, as this somewhat does, an open book and I think that’s perfect.

Alan Turing was not a fictional character, one whose entire story can be told in a book. He was real. A real person, who managed to be both ordinary and extraordinary and whose life, work and far too early loss have impacted the world deeply.

There is no “The End” here because his story is still going and – especially if I have anything to say about it – always will.

Explaining Enigma

Hi there! Something a little different i suppose, but with the release of The Imitation Game, i’ve been reading up a lot on Alan Turing recently and i just completely adore him. What a wonderful wonderful man.

I’m completely astonished that (just showing how powerful and how influential film it can be) until i heard about this film being made just over a year ago, i didn’t really know who Alan Turing was, which frankly having just finished an education that involved a maths degree, A Level maths and further maths and GCSE ICT and history including focus around World War II and with friends having just completed degrees in computer science…is appalling.

I’ve reviewed a short book based around him on this site before (The Big Idea – Turing and the Computer) and i’m sure you’ll hear more from me in the future now that i’m reading into his life and work a lot..but i won’t waffle on about him here right now because i could seriously go on for days!

I do recommend you go and research him yourself though, such a beautiful, inspiring man and such an unsung hero.

Anyway!

With my apparent love for puzzles and maths (i suppose i have to love it deep down or i wouldn’t have done a degree in it) i got a huge amount of pleasure out of researching about the ENIGMA machine. I’m hoping to learn about Turing’s machine “The Bombe” that cracked the German Enigma code but before i got to that i figured i should understand Enigma first.

Now if there’s one thing i found throughout my degree is that no one ever seems to put any mathematical literature out there so that non-mathematical human beings can understand it, and everything you need never seems to be all nicely together in one place (i know…i sound like it just want someone to do all the work for me but ugh..effort). I mean…i work in maths…numbers..processes…practical examples…not paragraphs and paragraphs of words that make no sense to me…brain malfunction..does not compute. I always end up reinterpreting everything into simpler method explanations and terminology so i can understand it and go back to it with ease.

So this was just for me to start with but i thought….why not share!

I’ve really enjoyed learning all of this for myself, because even with my experience in maths this was still all new stuff for me. I suppose the advantage i did have was being able to understand and explains some of the mathematical notation and verify the calculations myself where i could. But..anyway!

Should you be interested, which i hope The Imitation Game and Alan Turing will inspire people to be, here is my explanation of the Enigma machine. Explanations as to the version of the machine i am using and any disclaimer comments are in the document itself!

Enjoy! Feel free to ask me any questions or let me know if you spot any mistakes or anything i’ve missed! Thanks!

EXPLAINING ENIGMA

“Normal? The world is an infinitely better place precisely because you weren’t”

The Imitation Game.

So i’ve FINALLY seen it!

I actually saw it on November 10th but wanted to wait until my second viewing (the friday of the same week) before i made a proper attempt at saying anything here.

I am going to make an extremely conscious effort to limit myself because i will waffle for the rest of my life about this if given the chance.

This film..is absolutely stunning. Gorgeous, heartbreaking, funny, inspirational…as is the man the story is about. I’ve been following this film for a while and one of the best decisions i have ever made was to go and find out more about Alan Turing. He is a truly TRULY brilliant, genius, lovely and heroic man (why use one adjective where 12 will do eh). I think the most important thing this film does is finally brings his story to an audience and Turing is finally starting to get some of the recognition he truly deserves. I honestly get emotional just thinking about him, if they ever invent time travel he’ll be my first stop.

One issue…okay this isn’t even an issue…certainly not with the film..it’s my issue…as i say i delved quite deeply into the story of Alan Turing before i saw this film and i’ve yet to decide if that was an advantage or a disadvantage. I will admit upon my first viewing of the film, a lot of my concentration was on seeing what parts of the story they actually put in the film and what changes were made. I think of course there was going to be some artistic license and some simplifications of the story, and i think when they do that they do it really well.

I had the odd niggles in the back of my mind going “oh i wish they’d told more of the story there..there’s so much more to that” but if they did that where i wanted them to the film would be ten hours long. Also with a few adjustments and changes (completely understandable for dramatic effect) sometimes i thought “oh…oh that’s not quite right..i feel like i have to tell people that’s not completely accurate” but you know what that’s me being INCREDIBLY picky.

That’s why i waited until my second viewing to do this. Once i’d come to terms with what was in it, i could sit and just enjoy it fully and goodness do i enjoy this film. It is absolutely remarkable and if there isn’t a large amount of recognition at the Oscars then nothing is right with the world!

In following the promotion of this film i can see every member of the cast and crew are so passionate about Alan Turing’s story and seem to have fallen in love with him just as everyone does when they hear about him. They wanted to do it right, do it well and wanted to get the story out there.

Benedict Cumberbatch, well..he’s just stunning isn’t he? Absolutely melts away into his characters and Turing is no exception. It is Alan you’re watching, not Benedict. And on a personal note as a big fan of Benedict’s I would just like to say how lucky we are that a man with such immense talent, such passion and care for the story he is telling and such a wide reach of admiration and influence, is at the forefront of this film. He knows the importance of this man and his story and goes to every length to make sure his life and achievements have been recognised (seriously, have you heard him talk about Alan? goes on for days it’s brilliant).

The whole cast is brilliant! Seriously fantastic! But i have to mention Keira Knightley because (i can’t believe i’m about to say this) she really surprised me. Don’t get me wrong i absolutely adore her as a person i have such a girl crush on her and i want to be best friends with her asap please and i admit now i’ve not seen everything she’s in so this is mainly a hugely ignorant comment but i have been known to think she was rather….same-y in things. I mean..hardly her fault..i suppose a lot of her characters can be seen as quite similar (again..by someone as ignorant as myself) but i must admit i did wonder if her Joan Clarke (another person to look up by the way..she is AWESOME! Girl power!) would slot into the sort of “same-y” image i had built up in my head. It really didn’t. She was magnificent. And the more i see her in the promotion the more i love her and i think i’ll make myself go back and watch her other work again.

One more thing! Alex Lawther who plays young Alan Turing, watch out for this kid because he is fantastic! He’s such a lovely lad and it’s so sweet hearing him talk about the film. What mainly stuck with me was how well he not only portrayed young Alan, but portrayed a young version of Benedict’s Alan. He seriously is brilliant.

Anyway…that was apparently me limiting myself so i do apologise for the waffle.

Also if you see the film…bring tissues…seriously i was a complete sobbing mess by the end of it…both viewings.

Oh! And buy the soundtrack. I actually have it on right now. Alexandre Desplat knocks it out of the park once again! It is seriously..beyond beautiful.