The Forgotten Giant of Bletchley Park

The Forgotten Giant of Bletchley Park
Author: Harold Liberty
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2022-07-20
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1399089641

In recent years, the work of the Bletchley Park codebreakers has caught the public’s imagination with books and films. While men such as Alan Turing and Dilly Knox have been recognized, Brigadier John Tiltman has been hardly mentioned. This overdue biography reveals that ‘The Brig’, as he was known, played a key role. After distinguished Great War military service, he established himself as a skilled codebreaker between the Wars, monitoring Russian and other unfriendly powers’ messages. During World War Two he was regarded as the most versatile of cryptographers, cracking a range of codes including Japanese ones. He made the first breakthrough against the German High Command Lorenz system and what he found led to the creation of machines including Colossus, the first recognisable computer. His lack of recognition may be down to his apparent lack of association with Enigma but, in truth, he was closely involved at the start. In addition to his cryptological brilliance, ‘The Brig’ was a gifted communicator and team-builder whose character combined charm, intelligence, determination and common sense. He was key to building the special relationship with our American partners both during and after the war. Harold Liberty’s biography shines light on a man whose contribution was essential to Britain’s survival and triumph in the Second World War.


Saving Bletchley Park

Saving Bletchley Park
Author: Sue Black
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2016-03-10
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1783521678

Imagine a Britain where the most important sites of historical significance are replaced with housing estates and supermarkets... Imagine a Britain without Bletchley Park, where Alan Turing and a team of code breakers changed the course of World War II and where thousands of women inspired future generations with their work in the fields of computing and technology... Now imagine a group of extraordinary people, who – seventy years after the birth of the modern computer at Bletchley Park – used technology to spark a social media campaign that helped secure its future and transform it into the world-class heritage and education centre it deserves to be. This is a story about saving Bletchley Park. But it is also the story of the hundreds of people who dedicated twenty years of hard work and determination to the campaign that saved it. It is a testament to the remarkable and mysterious work during World War II that made it a place worth saving. It is a book about campaigners, veterans, enthusiasts, computer geeks, technology, Twitter, trees and Stephen Fry stuck in a lift. And finally, it is a story about preserving the past for the generations of tomorrow.


Remembering Women Differently

Remembering Women Differently
Author: Lynée Lewis Gaillet
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2019-05-23
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1611179807

An examination of women's work, rhetorical agency, and the construction of female reputation Before the full and honest tale of humanity can be told, it will be necessary to uncover the hidden roles of women in it and recover their voices from the forces that have diminished their contributions or even at times deliberately eclipsed them. The past half-century has seen women rise to claim their equal portion of recognition, and Remembering Women Differently addresses not only some of those neglected—it examines why they were deliberately erased from history. The contributors in this collection study the contributions of fourteen nearly forgotten women from around the globe working in fields that range from art to philosophy, from teaching to social welfare, from science to the military, and how and why those individuals became either marginalized or discounted in a mostly patriarchal world. These sterling contributors, scholars from a variety of disciplines—rhetoricians, historians, compositionists, and literary critics—employ feminist research methods in examining women's work, rhetorical agency, and the construction of female reputation. By recovering these voices and remembering the women whose contributions have made our civilization better and more whole, this work seeks to ensure that women's voices are never silenced again.


The Turing Guide

The Turing Guide
Author: B. Jack Copeland
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 563
Release: 2017
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0198747829

Alan Turing has long proved a subject of fascination, but following the centenary of his birth in 2012, the code-breaker, computer pioneer, mathematician (and much more) has become even more celebrated with much media coverage, and several meetings, conferences and books raising public awareness of Turing's life and work. This volume will bring together contributions from some of the leading experts on Alan Turing to create a comprehensive guide to Turing that will serve as a useful resource for researchers in the area as well as the increasingly interested general reader. The book will cover aspects of Turing's life and the wide range of his intellectual activities, including mathematics, code-breaking, computer science, logic, artificial intelligence and mathematical biology, as well as his subsequent influence.


Before The Robots Come

Before The Robots Come
Author: Francis McDonnell
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 89
Release: 2017-07-13
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0244320047

A collection of 49 poems - mostly rhyming but some not - and an essay.


To Boldly Go Where No Book Has Gone Before

To Boldly Go Where No Book Has Gone Before
Author: Luke O'Neill
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2023-10-05
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0241994136

Science is a serious business, right? Wrong. Scientists have been participants in the best reality show of all time, with all the highs, lows, bust-ups, and strange personalities of any show on telly today. From Luke O'Neill - the science teacher you wish you'd had - this hugely accessible history of science reveals the human stories behind the biggest discoveries. For example, we meet Charles Darwin as he weighs up the pros and cons of marrying his cousin: 'constant companion' vs 'less money for books'. Tough call. To Boldly Go Where No Book Has Gone Before covers everything from space travel and evolution to alchemy and AI. Written by one of our leading scientists, this is an insider's account that celebrates the joy of science. It is filled with all the juicy bits that other histories leave out.


House of Spies

House of Spies
Author: Peter Matthews
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2016-10-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0750964073

St Ermin’s Hotel has been at the centre of British intelligence since the 1930s, when it was known to MI6 as ‘The Works Canteen’. Intelligence officers such as Ian Fleming and Noel Coward were to be found in the hotel’s Caxton Bar, along with other less well-known names. Winston Churchill allegedly conceived the idea of the Special Operations Executive there over a glass (or two) of his favourite champagne in the early days of the Second World War, and the operation was started up in three gloomy rooms on the hotel’s second floor, with the traitorous Cambridge Spies among its founders. When Stalin’s Russia turned to a peacetime enemy in the Cold War that followed, Kim Philby and Guy Burgess handed over intelligence to their Russian counterparts in the dark corners of the hotel, while MI6 man George Blake operated as a Soviet double agent just across the road in Artillery Mansions. Meanwhile, St Ermin’s proximity to government offices ensured its continued use by both domestic and foreign secret agents. In this first book on St Ermin’s, Peter Matthews, a witness to the intelligence battle for supremacy between MI5, MI6 and the KGB, explores this remarkable true history that is more riveting than any spy novel.


It Began with Babbage

It Began with Babbage
Author: Subrata Dasgupta
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2014-01-07
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0199309426

As a field, computer science occupies a unique scientific space, in that its subject matter can exist in both physical and abstract realms. An artifact such as software is both tangible and not, and must be classified as something in between, or "liminal." The study and production of liminal artifacts allows for creative possibilities that are, and have been, possible only in computer science. In It Began with Babbage, computer scientist and writer Subrata Dasgupta examines the distinct history of computer science in terms of its creative innovations, reaching back to Charles Babbage in 1819. Since all artifacts of computer science are conceived with a use in mind, the computer scientist is not concerned with the natural laws that govern disciplines like physics or chemistry; instead, the field is more concerned with the concept of purpose. This requirement lends itself to a type of creative thinking that, as Dasgupta shows us, has exhibited itself throughout the history of computer science. More than any other, computer science is the science of the artificial, and has a unique history to accompany its unique focus. The book traces a path from Babbage's Difference Engine in the early 19th century to the end of the 1960s by when a new academic discipline named "computer science" had come into being. Along the way we meet characters like Babbage and Ada Lovelace, Turing and von Neumann, Shannon and Chomsky, and a host of other people from a variety of backgrounds who collectively created this new science of the artificial. And in the end, we see how and why computer science acquired a nature and history all of its own.