Capsule biography by _the_ Turing biographer for a series titled "The Great Philosophers Series". It's well written, but so necessarily terse that it conveys a feeling more than understanding. Turing emerges from most biographies as such a likable figure, I don't know why. It is surely better than most other capsule biographies of Turing, which would attempt breeziness, pathetically. It quotes extensively from Turing's original work, which is hard to read w/out or even perhaps with the context of his other original writings. And finally it discusses the relationship of Roger Penrose's ideas about mind to Turing, about which I really know only what I was able to glean from reading about Neal Stephenson's "Anathem". ( )

It's a quick review on how Turing came up with his famous theorem and Turing's personality. ( )