The Essential Turing: Seminal Writings in Computing, Logic, Philosophy, Artificial Intelligence, and Artificial Life plus The Secrets of Enigma

A long overdue book. Copeland collects together Turing's greatest papers. As in where Turing tackled the fundamentals of what is now called a Turing machine - ie. a universal computer. Plus other papers where Turing ruminated on artificial intelligence, and founded that field. Plus coming up with the Turing Test for AI.Turing's papers are interleaved with chapters by Copeland that give extra context to the times in which Turing lived. Notably on Turing's crucial contribution to the Enigma project at Bletchley Park during World War 2. It is no exaggeration to say that his insight into decoding the German encryptions saved the lives of thousands of Allied soldiers.Valuable also is a reprinting of Turing's "Treatise on the Enigma", which was only declassified in 1996. Though by then, its essence had been known for decades. Finally, the book lets you read Turing's words on Enigma.

Enjoy this profound book by the father of the Digital Age. The Essential Turing is an excellent edition and long overdue. Turing's essential works are finally available in a single volume. Turing is one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century--he was rated up there with Einstein in Time magazine's 'The Century's Greatest Minds'. Copeland's lucid commentaries on Turing's work are fascinating and helpful. OUP is to be congratulated on putting Turing into the hands of the popular science book-buyer at long last.

This is a terrific book. Turing is one of the most important figures of our time. Copeland's lucid and helpful introductions to Turing's key works make fascinating reading. (The hundreds of footnotes are testimony to the depth of scholarship that underlies Copeland's smooth prose.) Copeland makes Turing, and so the origins of the digital age, accessible to all.

Copeland's "Essential Turing" reviews Turning's major writings and is a valuable source of knowledge for computer scientists and avid CS/Mathematics readers alike. Turing was a brilliant British mathematician, logician, and cryptographer and is widely considered to be the father of computer science. This book doesn't portray him merely as a code breaker but also provides commentary on his brilliant foundation work as on Artificial intelligence. Discussion on the ultimate Turing test (proposal for a test of a machine's capability to perform human-like conversation) and Entscheidungs Problem is worth reading.I shelve this book next to Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming" which may state what it's worth.

Copeland's book is basically a collection of some of Turing's original papers, completed with a short introduction for each part of the book. I was disappointed by this book as (1) one can easily find copies of Turing's work on the web, (2) there is very little additional value in Copeland's comments, and (3) the papers are not reproduced in their original typeset and layout. Elsevier's "Collected Works of A. M. Turing" (4 volumes) does a much better job and offers Turing's complete work.

I had hoped more into the insights of Turing. This is a great hisitorical document about the development and logic of Turing's approaches to the issues of encryption, but it is not an easy read. This will have value to technology/history buffs who are very technically inclined, but it is not an easy read. This is a great collection of documents for a limited number of people.

to much math i wanted more history

The major problem with the Kindle edition of this book is that it cannot be read on either Kindle for Windows 8 nor on Kindle for an Android phone. I suggest that Amazon indicate this on the information page. As for the book itself, Copeland is at his usual best introducing complex ideas in a clear manner.

De lo mejor que he leído en el tema Turing. Desarrolla el conocimiento de su investigación asociando partes biográficas; una presentación que ofrece una agradable y relevante lectura.

和書ではなかなかアラン・チューリングのバランスの取れた資料が無いのですが素晴らしいバランスの取れた内容に仕上がっています。主題は戦前のチューリングマシンに戦後の人工知能なのですが、この本の凄い所は戦時中のチューリングのブレッチェリーパークでの活動がエニグマ暗号機の解読と共に非常に詳細に述べられている所です！サブタイトルにもある様にエニグマ暗号機の記事は本来はオマケ扱いですが、何しろ洋書ですらも資料が不足しているので、エニグマ暗号機の研究者には必須の本だと思います。オマケという割にはかなり具体的で、サイモン・シン「暗号解読」では触れられなかった、ポーランドの初期解読方法の苦悩にBombaやチューリングのSpiderという技術についても説明記事が有ります。勿論、チューリングマシンやAIにも興味がある方にも良い資料だと思いますが、こちらは他の和書でも最近は資料が充実しだしていますからね…全体を通して、伝記ではなく技術書という出来に仕上がっていますので軽く読みたいという方には少々荷が重いかもしれません。※この本、読み込んでいるとエニグマ暗号機解読の章は途轍もないディープな内容です。　レイェフスキが作ったBombaの事まで載ってます。もはや、ここまで来ると直接は　チューリングには関係ないのですが、助かります！！！！