Code-Breaker
Jun. 16th, 2013 10:06 pm Jim Holt's "Code-Breaker" portrays the story of Alan Turing's life and his accomplishments. He also exceeds in emotionally engaging the audience to take a moment and to realize the difficulties Turing had to face being a homosexual at that time.
Throughout his short lived life, Turing made two major accomplishments including "breaking the German Enigma code during the Second World War, and creating the blueprint for the modern computer."(Pg. 337) By breaking the code, Turing succeed in helping save many lives from the Nazi code in 1941. However, this great accomplishment went ignored and was not acknowledged until the nineteen-seventies. Then in the eighties came Turing's second accomplishment of the blueprint for the computer, which he got his fare and well deserved credit. For achieving such big accomplishments for the world, it is unfortunate that the Turing had to undergo such discrimination from humanity.
In addition, Holt "emotionally engages the reader to think about what life was like for gay men at the time." Turing lived in a time where society would rather judge someone on their sexuality and their lifestyle, than to consider and be thankful of their achievements. Instead, Turing was unfairly charged of "'gross indecency' for having a homosexual affair" (Pg. 337). Seeing the unjust charges against Turing, it is not difficult for reads to image the unfair treatment gay men had to go through in the early to mid nineteen-hundreds.
Overall, Holt manages to shed a some light on the unjust treatment that gay men received from society in that time of life, and the great achievements made by Turing. Besides the unfair treatment Turing received because of his sexuality, Holt succeeds in portraying and reminding the audience of Turing's achievements of "saving countless lives by defeating a Nazi code, conceived the computer, and rethought how mind arises the matter" (Pg. 346)