Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #655157 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 106 pages

Review
Try Jon Agar's Turing and the Universal Machine. His excellent treatment [is] highly readable, of general interest and a useful introduction to the subject. -- New Scientist magazine, May 26th, 2001

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Universal Machines

Take out a Swiss Army knife and have a good look at it. I have one here. It has the full range of gizmos and attachments. There is a pair of scissors, a retractable pen, a ruler, a magnetic Phillips screw-driver, some tweezers, a small blade and an emergency blade. There is even a ‘cuticle pusher’ and a nail file, essential for any well-manicured soldier. Nothing to get stones out of horses’ hooves, but very handy nevertheless.

Swiss Army knives are versatile machines: they can be put to many different uses. Other machines are far more restricted. A lawnmower, for example, can mow lawns, but not much else. It has been designed for a specific purpose, and the function of each part of it follows. The handle is there so that it can be pushed by an adult human. The engine will power the blades, which would be exhausting to turn by hand. The blades are set so that grass is cut to an inch off the ground, the height we like lawns to be. While the lawnmower can be put to other purposes – propping open a door, perhaps – it will usually not be very effective. No one tries to fly the Atlantic on a lawnmower. Flying requires different kinds of special-purpose machines.

Some devices are more versatile because they are simple. A sharpened stick, for example, can be used as a lever, or to cook a kebab, or to knit a sweater. Indeed, more uses can probably be found for a simple sharpened stick than for a Victorinox Pocket Size MiniChamp II – my top-of-the-range Swiss knife. Yet, despite their varying versatility, Swiss Army knives, lawnmowers and sharpened sticks are all a similar sort of machine. Even the knife and the stick are, in the end, special-purpose machines, and are radically different to an astonishing device built for the first time in the middle of the last century: a machine of universal application.

The Blue Pig

An early example could be found in Manchester in 1951. It filled a room, and broke down regularly. A team of engineers tended it, replacing the valves – or vacuum tubes – as they blew. They called it the ‘Blue Pig’. If you had £150,000 you could buy one of these machines for yourself, although there would be a queue of military establishments and scientific laboratories ahead of you. Three years earlier, the first ever machine of this type had been built a hundred yards away. That one was an experiment, rows of electronic tubes and a tangle of gutta-percha- covered wires filling what resembled a set of bookshelves. The 1951 model gleamed – the valves hidden in banks of metal cupboards, a shiny central console with rows of switches and lights.

Late in the year, the Blue Pig had some visitors. They were from a children’s radio programme, and had come to hear the Pig sing. The engineers prepared the machine, and, after a moment’s hesitation, a gratingly harsh but stately National Anthem blared forth. The radio presenter was delighted. The patriotic hymn was followed by ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ and finally the dancehall jazz of ‘In the Mood’. The Blue Pig had trouble with the last tune: it improvised some notes of its own and then fell into silence. The machine, concluded the radio presenter, was not, after all, in the mood.

With the visitors gone, the engineers returned to another task, but with the same machine. The Pig could produce poetry, doggerel love letters. Here’s an example:

Darling Sweetheart,

You are my fellow feeling. My affection curiously

clings to your passionate wish. My liking yearns

to your heart. You are my wistful sympathy: my

tender liking.

Yours beautifully,

M.U.C.

The Blue Pig could do mathematics too. Much faster than any human mathematician, it made calculation after calculation. What it searched for were moments when a certain function – the Riemann Zeta function – took the value of zero. It was something of a fishing expedition, but if they were lucky and found an unexpected zero, then a famous mathematical hypothesis would be proven wrong. Despite the Pig’s all-night efforts, none was found. This was a particular disappointment to a middle-aged man of awkward manner, who had achieved early fame proving another hypothesis wrong – and at the very same moment had come up with the idea now expressed in massive material form by the Blue Pig. This man was Alan Turing, and the renaissance Pig – one machine producing music, poetry and mathematics – was MUC: the Manchester University Computer.

Computers nowadays look nothing like the Blue Pig. But the machine that sits on your desk shares the same ability as its predecessor from half a century ago: it is a universal machine. They present a strange case in the history of technology. They are machines of apparently limitless applicability, yet they are also the drudges of the modern world. Numbering millions, they have a typical working day made up of repetition, repetition, repetition. How can the invention of this remarkable device be explained? The question is the same as asking: what sort of society would ever need such a thing?

Customer Reviews

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?

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.

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.