bramboomen's review
5.0
I found this book to be the most enjoyable way to read a scientific paper ever. The way the book is structured is just excellent: Historical context provided but optional, scary maths not simplified but explained and also optional. On top of that, the writing is very accessible and nice to read.
The only problem I had in reading this was not so much to do with Petzold (or Turing) but with the logical syntax and the way it is presented. There is such a sheer amount of symbols in this paper that even to someone used to the syntax, the formulas towards the end of the paper become borderline unreadable without a legend. The finishing touch to this book would be to provide some sort of system that would make this more "reading-material" than "study-material".
Nevertheless, this was an exellent book and I think this kind of text is how fundamental research should be presented much more often.
The only problem I had in reading this was not so much to do with Petzold (or Turing) but with the logical syntax and the way it is presented. There is such a sheer amount of symbols in this paper that even to someone used to the syntax, the formulas towards the end of the paper become borderline unreadable without a legend. The finishing touch to this book would be to provide some sort of system that would make this more "reading-material" than "study-material".
Nevertheless, this was an exellent book and I think this kind of text is how fundamental research should be presented much more often.
jasondew's review
4.0
Very good book on Turing's famous paper but my favorite part was the ancillary coverage of mathematicians and computer scientists that were influenced by the Turing machine.
luckypluto's review
slow-paced
2.0
There are a couple interesting takeaways from The Annotated Turing: one, that Turing’s original paper, while insightful and difficult to parse, is also replete with errors, making it even harder to decipher; two, even Petzold doesn’t put that much effort into proving his annotated assertions. I have been looking forward to taking the time to read this book for almost nine years. It definitely has some good parts: It explains transcendental numbers, set theory, and notions of infinity in a way that is easily understood, and I enjoyed the historical context behind some of the mathematical discoveries. Unfortunately, I did not feel that elucidated much of Turing’s paper. Petzold phones in a lot of his explanations, with many of them going far over my head; by the end of the book, I didn’t even bother trying to follow along because I was almost completely lost. Many of his annotations are inscrutable to people who don’t already understand the paper. Needless to say, I was sorely disappointed by this book. Petzold may be a great software developer and perhaps even a better computer scientist, but his teaching skills could use refinement.
pseud0bread's review
3.0
If you wanna know more about why computers can compute only what they can compute and can't compute what they can't and why and you're into reading technical stuff on what computability even is, give this a read. It's pretty dense.
schmudde's review
5.0
Excellent storytelling underpins the technical details that made Turing's paper such a stunning and important leap of imagination.
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