A soft machine in a hard world - Andrew Hodges (Turing Event 2018)

The talk followed on from the exhibition of Alan Turing’s papers as held in the College's Archive. These unique documents, for all their omissions and losses, are precious witnesses to the past and speak vividly to us today. Andrew used them and other forms of evidence to bring out some of the deeper threads which run through Alan Turing’s extraordinary story. Although his narrative concerns the history of computer science, of which he was the founder, there is a parallel and related story in the history of sexuality. Today, as never before, these interact, and Turing’s discourse anticipated this interaction. Witty, wide-ranging and down-to-earth, Turing enjoyed making his ideas accessible and Andrew will try to follow his example. Andrew will also discuss some documents recently acquired by the Archive which shed new light on his life and death.