A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines - General Discussion, No Spoilers (January 2016)

[Whitney]

Here’s a place to check in so we can get an idea of who’s here and where they are in the reading. Feel free to give your initial impressions of the book as well, or any other interesting links or observations you have. Since it’s a fairly short book, I won’t be breaking it up into sections but will have another thread for discussion of the entire book.

Here’s a little background information and some links.

The author Janna Levin is an astrophysicist who teaches at Columbia University. She has also worked at Cambridge, and was the first scientist-in-residence at the Ruskin School of Fine Art and Drawing at Oxford (how cool is that?). A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines won the 2007 PEN/Bingham Fellowship for Writers and the Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work.

Her homepage is pretty nifty and has links showing her contributions to science and art, as well as public appearances including The Colbert Report, The Moth, and her TED talk. http://www.jannalevin.com

I’m sure everyone is proficient at searching Wikipedia, so I won’t provide the links for Turing, Gödel, or Wittgenstein. Did people look up information on them, or were those with a background in mathematics and/or philosophy already familiar with them? Do you think extensive background knowledge was necessary to appreciate this book?

Finally, here are links to a couple reviews:

M. John Harrison’s review in The Guardian .

Jim Holt in The New York Times.

[Hugh]

This looks like a really interesting book, but I don't think my chances of finding a hard copy are at all promising, and unless I do I won't be participating - sorry...

[Peter]

I admit I was already familiar with the work of Gödel (from reading Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid initially, and then further reading) and Turing (from doing a degree in Computer and Information Science) and to a lesser extent Wittgenstein. But the book is about them as people, not about their work, and I don't really think you need to know about their work in any detail (just what's in the book) to appreciate the novel,.

[LindaJ^]

Hugh wrote: "This looks like a really interesting book, but I don't think my chances of finding a hard copy are at all promising, and unless I do I won't be participating - sorry..."

I got a fairly inexpensive copy of the paperbook through abebooks.com.

[LindaJ^]

Thanks for the reviews Whitney - two rather different perspectives. Before reading the book, I only knew that Gödel was important for some reason but I had some knowledge of Turing from having seen the movie The Imitation Game (view spoiler)[(which was not entirely accurate -- see http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2...) (hide spoiler)].

I do not think it is necessary to have any great knowledge of mathematics or physics to read the book and to appreciate the extreme genius of these two men. I am in awe of anyone who is able to use mathematics as a language that is more precise and universally understandable than any spoken language. I did not attempt to look anything about the men's theories. I enjoyed how the author laid out the story and, for me, connected the two men.

[Marie (UK)]

I got my copy from the library but will not be able to start for a few days

[Whitney]

Don't worry, Marie, jump in anytime!

I'll get the general discussion thread up tonight.

[Tiffany]

Hello! I started reading the book last night, and it's a fairly quick read, so I'm nearly halfway done.

I have some knowledge of Gödel and Turing from previous readings. Like Peter, I've read Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, as well as Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel; last year, I also went on a little Turing/Enigma/Bletchley Park/WWII codebreakers tangent, and read Alan Turing: The Enigma and The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer (and if I remember correctly, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid also mentions Turing).

Like Linda said, I don't think it's necessary to know background information about the people in the story, since Levin seems to be describing all the major aspects anyway, such as Turing's torment at boarding school, and relays some of the men's theories through conversations they have with others or in their own minds. I think if I hadn't read the books I've already read about them, Levin would be giving me the highlights of what those other books hold, and I'd be no worse for the wear not reading those other books beforehand.

[Whitney]

Okay, Tiffany, you're the go-to for inside information! I agree with you, Linda, and Peter that the book stands well on its own without having to know a lot of background information.

I also read Gödel, Escher, Bach, but probably 25 years ago so I don't remember much. Tried to flip through it to refresh my memory, but not exactly a book you flip through. I saw "Breaking the Code", the play about Turing, on stage many years ago. It was excellent, and I couldn't bring myself to watch the story get Hollywooded in The Imitation Game, even with Benedict Cumberbatch to sweeten the deal.

[Kirsten]

I never got a hold of this book, but I just stumbled on this article if anyone is interested.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/04...

[Whitney]

Thanks for posting this, Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space sounds really interesting.