Andrew Hodges: "Alan Turing: An Individual of the Twentieth Century"

Series: William & Myrtle Harris Distinguished Lectureship in Science and Civilization

Alan Turing (1912-1954) was the founder of modern computer science and the chief scientific cryptographer of the Second World War.

Andrew Hodges, PhD, is the author of Alan Turing: The Enigma upon which the Academy Award-winning (Adapted Screenplay) The Imitation Game is based. Hodges offers the words of Walt Whitman referenced in his biography of Turing as a preview for this lecture: "One's-self I sing—a simple, separate Person; / Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-masse."

In this talk, Hodges—Senior Research Fellow and Tutor in Mathematics at Wadham College, University of Oxford—will describe some of the achievements that made Turing a very singular individual, but one caught up in the great sweep of twentieth-century science and history.

This is a free event, with no tickets or reservations required.