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The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine 1st Edition
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Mathematician Alan Turing invented an imaginary computer known as the Turing Machine; in an age before computers, he explored the concept of what it meant to be computable, creating the field of computability theory in the process, a foundation of present-day computer programming.
The book expands Turing’s original 36-page paper with additional background chapters and extensive annotations; the author elaborates on and clarifies many of Turing’s statements, making the original difficult-to-read document accessible to present day programmers, computer science majors, math geeks, and others.
Interwoven into the narrative are the highlights of Turing’s own life: his years at Cambridge and Princeton, his secret work in cryptanalysis during World War II, his involvement in seminal computer projects, his speculations about artificial intelligence, his arrest and prosecution for the crime of "gross indecency," and his early death by apparent suicide at the age of 41.
- ISBN-100470229055
- ISBN-13978-0470229057
- Edition1st
- PublisherWiley
- Publication dateJune 16, 2008
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions6 x 0.8 x 8.9 inches
- Print length384 pages
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From the Inside Flap
In an extraordinary and ultimately tragic life that unfolded like a novel, Turing helped break the German Enigma code to turn the tide of World War II, later speculated on artificial intelligence, fell victim to the homophobic witchhunts of the early 1950s, and committed suicide at the age of 41. Yet Turing is most famous for an eerily prescient 1936 paper in which he invented an imaginary computing machine, explored its capabilities and intrinsic limitations, and established the foundations of modern-day programming and computability.
This absorbing book expands Turing's now legendary 36-page paper with extensive annotations, fascinating historical context, and page-turning glimpses into his private life. From his use of binary numbers to his exploration of concepts that today's programmers will recognize as RISC processing, subroutines, algorithms, and others, Turing foresaw the future and helped to mold it. In our post-Turing world, everything is a Turing Machine — from the most sophisticated computers we can build, to the hardly algorithmic processes of the human mind, to the information-laden universe in which we live.
From the Back Cover
In an extraordinary and ultimately tragic life that unfolded like a novel, Turing helped break the German Enigma code to turn the tide of World War II, later speculated on artificial intelligence, fell victim to the homophobic witchhunts of the early 1950s, and committed suicide at the age of 41. Yet Turing is most famous for an eerily prescient 1936 paper in which he invented an imaginary computing machine, explored its capabilities and intrinsic limitations, and established the foundations of modern-day programming and computability.
This absorbing book expands Turing's now legendary 36-page paper with extensive annotations, fascinating historical context, and page-turning glimpses into his private life. From his use of binary numbers to his exploration of concepts that today's programmers will recognize as RISC processing, subroutines, algorithms, and others, Turing foresaw the future and helped to mold it. In our post-Turing world, everything is a Turing Machine ― from the most sophisticated computers we can build, to the hardly algorithmic processes of the human mind, to the information-laden universe in which we live.
About the Author
American writer Charles Petzold (1953–) is the author of the acclaimed 1999 book Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software, a unique exploration into the digital technologies of computers. He is also the author of hundreds of articles about computer programming, as well as several books on writing programs that run under Microsoft Windows. His Web site is www.charlespetzold.com.
Product details
- Publisher : Wiley
- Publication date : June 16, 2008
- Edition : 1st
- Language : English
- Print length : 384 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0470229055
- ISBN-13 : 978-0470229057
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.8 x 8.9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #256,746 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #33 in Artificial Intelligence (Books)
- #81 in Mathematical Logic
- #565 in Artificial Intelligence & Semantics
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Charles Petzold has been writing about Windows programming for 25 years. A Windows Pioneer Award winner, Petzold is author of the classic Programming Windows, the widely acclaimed Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software, Programming Windows Phone 7, and more than a dozen other books.
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Customers find the book highly informative, with one noting it serves as an excellent university text for serious computer science curricula. Moreover, the book is well-written and easy to understand, with one customer highlighting how the programs are exciting to read.
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Customers find the book well written and easy to understand, with one customer noting that the programs are exciting to read.
"...The book is so readable that I usually forget I'm reading a very technical book that goes in to very core of computer science...." Read more
"...in his simple programs for his Turing Machine and the programs are as exciting to read as any well-written modern source code...." Read more
"This book is a good walk through Turing's important paper, mixing the original text (every line!)..." Read more
"This is not a light, casual read. If it is for you, I grovel at your feet - I am not worthy...." Read more
Customers find the book highly informative and valuable for computer scientists, praising its excellent annotations. One customer notes it serves as an excellent university text for serious CS curriculum, while another mentions it is particularly suitable for readers with a math background.
"...The book also includes all encompassing big picture overview, historical situation, importance, consequences and so on - nicely preparing reader for..." Read more
"what i really liked about the book was that it incorporated the original writings of turing and then provided examples and explanations...." Read more
"...These sections are handled wonderfully with great insight and clarity...." Read more
"...in the modern computer science context, I found this book was very satisfying in how it explained what Turing was working on, and why." Read more
Customers find that the book works fabulously well.
"...the approach of annotating the paper paragraph by paragraph works fabulously well - e.g. taking you through Turing's examples step-by-step and..." Read more
"...with clarifications, discussion, and worked examples to make it far more accessible...." Read more
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- Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2009It was about 10 years ago when I first found Turing's original paper on Internet and thought it wouldn't be so hard to read and understand it (after all its "mere" computer science). Since then I've tried to digest it quite a few times on and off and never actually succeeded. Infect most of the time I got stuck on few nitty-gritty and just couldn't move forward. I have even bought/borrowed almost all books on the subject that falls in to "popular science" types. Needless to say, like many such books in same category, they just never go in to details and are practically useless for all practical purposes :).
So imagine my surprise when I see a book with title "Annotated Turing" and by none other than Charles Petzold who I've known as author who normally writes programming books. That surprise was only a start. I was simply shocked when I opened the book. It was as-if someone read your dream and made it a reality with absolute precision with zero compromises. If there is one such book like this for all of the milestone scientific papers, there would be a revolution in learning.
Let me put out some points what makes this book so perfect. Not just wishy-washy "near perfect", I'm saying SO PERFECT.
*First, the book contains explanation of every single line in Turing's paper. Literally. The format of the book is a line quoted from Turing's paper in bold and a paragraph or so of explanation and discussions for that line. Author's claim is that you can actually cut out all those lines and stitch them to recreate the Turing's paper in its entirety complete with page numbers! Now that's what I call precision.
*The book also includes all encompassing big picture overview, historical situation, importance, consequences and so on - nicely preparing reader for the journey.
*The book is so readable that I usually forget I'm reading a very technical book that goes in to very core of computer science. It's like nicest computer science professor reads you the paper line by line and answers all your questions, even those completely stupid ones.
*As I'd doubted many times, there are lots of errors in Turning original paper. This book amazingly points them out and corrects even the minor misprints. I'm just surprised how author even know so much "insider" details about those trivial misprints and errors.
*Turing's paper is full of obscure strange symbols (have you seen old gothic German font?) that are common in scientific literature today. Author explains all these symbols, what they mean, where they came from, what are the subtle differences and so on. Just amazing.
*Turing's paper have lot of omissions for explanations and steps which he probably left out as "exercise for reader" to keep his paper short. Sometime you might get stuck in those exercises and if you are not in academia you probably have no external help. This book deals with all these omissions and expands so beautifully on them that I can't imagine if there any better way to describe them.
*Apart from omissions, there are lot of shortcuts that Turing employs with rather flitting explanations or sometime absolutely none. This book covers you 100% for these shortcuts.
*A big part of understanding Turing's paper is actually mentally running his machine's step by step for all the examples he puts out. This book actually does this step-by-step run explanation making it so easier to read and understand quickly.
Anyway, some of you might think why one should even bother about reading this ancient computer science paper in first place? Answer is huge changes in the way we have started viewing universe recently. While Seth Lloyd's book "Programming the Universe" does good job of explaining this thinking, the summary is that the universe can be seen as computing machine rather than particle and energies in the realms of physics. There was even a paper that proposed that even a simple system consisting of billiard balls interacting in space is Turing complete! That means by setting billiards balls in some initial points in space and velocity can computer anything that your laptop can compute in theory. To understand advances in this area you have to fully understand what is Turing's machine and what it means to be Turing complete and how one can prove that a certain system is computationally Turing complete. That's where the paper comes in. Text books just don't do justice.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2014what i really liked about the book was that it incorporated the original writings of turing and then provided examples and explanations. it also managed to weave in elements of turings life into the overall development of the book.
i have a very solid mathematical background, but primarily in real analysis, and not so much in foundations and logic. so i was very much appreciative having a highly educated tutor to help along the way. when someone has to struggle with the detail and intricacies of proofs and descriptions as appear in turing's work pointing out typos and missing parentheses is beneficial.
my only complaint regarding the book is that the indirect proofs are not identified at the very beginning of the proof. many of turing's results are achieved using indirect proof. they can be very confusing on the first reading because my first inclination is to accept what is written as consistent with the development so far. only later did it become clear that turing (and the author) was making an indirect argument.
after reading the book i have found it to be a very rewarding project. i wanted to really understand turing machines and their capabilities in much greater detail. i wanted to understand better the terminology regarding formal logical systems. i wanted to learn about alan turing through his work. the book was successful on all three levels for me.
if i understand the dates right that appear within the book, the paper which helped shape the foundations of computation was written by an undergraduate student who within a handful of years was helping design machines to decode german messages during world war ii. he was truly a genius whose life ended way too early. I personally think charles petzoid brought his story and his work to life.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2015With a reasonable background in Computer Science (or some enthusiastic reading), I suspect most people who would be interested would be able to follow the original paper. But it is definitely worthwhile getting a good guide if you can. Charles Petzold brings the same common sense he brought to CODE to take you through the details of a paper that profoundly changed Mathematics and kick-started the whole field of Computer Science.
In some places the approach of annotating the paper paragraph by paragraph works fabulously well - e.g. taking you through Turing's examples step-by-step and pointing out the errors and later elaborations. The digressions into lambda calculus and continuity are also great enhancements to the paper. But sometimes, the need to align comments to particular sections of the paper, leads to some topics getting broken up and makes it more difficult to follow the paper - this is particularly the case in the last part of the paper where Turing turns to the Enscheidungs Problem itself. I'm not certain that Charles Petzold feels totally comfortable with this section either. As a mathematician, I understood what he was trying to say, but I doubt whether someone who hadn't already encountered these ideas would have been able to follow it.
To be fair though, the vast majority of readers will be looking to understand the Universal Turing Machine and the idea of computability. These sections are handled wonderfully with great insight and clarity.
What came as a surprise to me was how many "programming paradigms" Alan Turing managed to anticipate in his simple programs for his Turing Machine and the programs are as exciting to read as any well-written modern source code.
If you are inspired by the big ideas in this book, I strongly recommend that you also look at Douglas Hofstadter's Goedel Escher Bach: An Eternal Braid which covers some of the same ideas from a radically different perspective.
Top reviews from other countries
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Gustavo MirapalhetaReviewed in Brazil on June 23, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Produto em execelente estado
Para estudar teoria da computação.
- Scott MarshallReviewed in the United Kingdom on September 19, 2009
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent In Every Way
Turing's 1936 Paper "On Computational Numbers" is often cited as a landmark in the history of computing, but it's details are not widely considered or well known today. If you're curious to know more about the Paper, and why it's important, you can do no better than read this book. It contains a complete transcript of the original Paper, with extensive commentary and explanation from Petzold that make the Paper accessible and understandable to a wider audience (and even for specialists, this book is probably a better choice than just reading the original Paper!). Petzold's enthusiasm for the topic shines through in an excellent writing style, striking a good balance between detailed technicalities and simpler descriptions, in a friendly helpful way that will neither confuse the layman nor bore the expert.
Petzold supplies invaluable historical context: some of the developments in mathematics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that undoubtedly influenced Turing, and which appear explicitly in the paper. This is a very useful aid to understanding Turing's paper for readers not expert in those topics of mathematics (which is almost all of us who don't have post-graduate degrees in very specialised areas of pure maths!). But the book is definitely aimed at readers with some mathematical background and aptitude. If (UK) O-level / GCSE maths was a mystery to you, you may struggle; if you have A-level maths or computing you'll be fine. If you're somewhere in between, Petzold's explanations will happily guide you through the details.
Two things this book isn't: First, if you want a book that starts from Turing's paper then delves into even more advanced mathematical research and theories, then this isn't the one for you (although it does helpfully include a summary of more recent work that follows on from Turing's ideas). Second, at the other extreme: although this book includes some biographical information, if you want a detailed non-technical biography of Turing you should look elsewhere.
But for all the rest of us between these two extremes, who want to understand what Turing machines are from the original source, then I wholeheartedly recommend this book.
My only complaint, and a very minor one, is that Petzold's description of Bletchley Park's location would place it in Suffolk rather than Buckinghamshire! But given the complexity of the book's subject matter, it is a testament to the quality of Petzold's research that this is his only error.
One person found this helpfulReport - andrewReviewed in Canada on September 2, 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Book!
This book is a surprise. It seems to be the perfect choice for someone interested in the historic work of the original "Turing Machine", since the original paper from Alan Turing is nearly incomprehensible by todays standards. As a result, the book is almost a neccessity (in my opinion). Importantly, the original Turing manuscript is printed line by line alongside the books explanatory text. Just to give some perspective, I also have read the book "A new Kind of Science" by Stephen Wolfram which doesn't even come close to touching the real significance of Alan Turing's proposal. I thought I understood this subject matter before I read this book, but I was wrong. Who knew.
I didn't realize just how revolutionary the idea behind the Turing Machine was. It has profound implications beyond just the notion of the modern day computer. It truly presents a new way of thinking and with philosophical overtones. The original work is something that without equivocation can be called true genius. It makes me wonder just what exactly the rest of us have been doing with our time (just kidding, sort of).
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Cliente AmazonReviewed in Italy on July 8, 2016
5.0 out of 5 stars Un ottimo testo
Un ottimo testo sia dal punto di vista scientifico sia storico. Non dovrebbe mancare fra i libri di ogni informatico
- Gursimar SinghReviewed in Australia on November 20, 2022
1.0 out of 5 stars Bought the Kindle version but the text is all messed up.
Not readable due to messy text on Kindle. I had to purchase a physical copy instead.