Alan Turing’s library list
Alan Turing 1912-54
Alan Turing was in the papers this week after scientists at Kings College vindicated his 60-year-old theory of how tigers get their stripes and leopards get their spots.
So it was very timely that an old friend who teaches at Sherborne, the school Turing attended between 1928 and 1930, got in touch this morning with a new information about the computer pioneer and codebreaker’s school years.
Sherborne archivist Rachel Hassall has uncovered the list of books Turing took out from the school library while he was a pupil. I’ve listed them below.
As you can see, and as you might expect – heavy on the sciences.
The AJ Evans, a memoir about the author’s escape from imprisonment in the First World War, is the only non-scientific book.
What struck me most however is that the physics books he took out all look very serious, but the maths ones are lighthearted: the Lewis Carroll and the Rouse Ball, which for decades was the classic text in recreational maths problems.
In fact, Hassall says that the book chosen by Turing for his school prize was a copy of the Rouse Ball.
Even teenage geniuses like to have fun.
NOTE: John Graham-Cumming has kindly provided links to free downloads to most of the books here, since most are out of copyright.
AUTHOR
TITLE
EDITION
COPY
?
Illusions
?
Journal of the Chemical Society, vols. 95, 96, 97
?
Lead
?
Modern Electric Theory
?
Money
Aston, Frederick William
Isotopes
1922
Ball, W.W. Rouse
Mathematical Recreations and Essays
1905 ed.
Yes
Carroll, Lewis
Alice in Wonderland
Carroll, Lewis
The Game of Logic
1886
Carroll, Lewis
Through the Looking Glass
Clifford, William Kingdon
The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences
1885
Eddington, Sir Arthur Stanley
Space, Time and Gravitation
1920
Eddington, Sir Arthur Stanley
The Nature of the Physical World
1928
Yes
(Physics Library)
Einstein, Albert
Sidelights on Relativity
1922
Evans, A.J.
The Escaping Club
1929
Fichte, Immanuel Hermann. Translated and edited by J.D. Morell.
Contributions to Mental Philosophy
1860
Haas, Arthur. Translated by R. W. Lawson.
The New Physics
1924
Henderson, Hubert D.
Supply and Demand
1922
Jeans, Sir James Hopwood
The Stars in their Courses
1931
Jeans, Sir James Hopwood
The Universe Around Us
1929
Yes
Lodge, Sir Oliver
Atoms and Rays
1924
Yes
(Physics Library)
Lodge, Sir Oliver et al
Phases of Modern Science. Published in connection with the Science Exhibit arranged by a committee of the Royal Society at the British Empire Exhibition 1925.
1925
Maxwell, James Clerk
Matter and Motion
1876
Yes
Preston, Thomas
The Theory of Heat
1894
Roberts, Isaac
A Selection of Photographs of Stars, Star-Clusters & Nebulae, together with information concerning the instruments & the methods employed in the pursuit of celestial photography.
1893
Rood, Ogden Nicholas
Modern Chromatics: with applications to art and industry
1879
Sanford, Vera. Ed. John Wesley Young
A Short History of Mathematics
1930
Webb, Thomas William
Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes
1859
Whetham, William Cecil Dampier
The Recent Development of Physical Science
1904
Whitehead, Alfred North (OS)
Science and the Modern World
1925
Wood, Alexander
Sound Waves and their Uses
1930
Yes
(Physics Library)
