Charles Babbage's difference
> engine was never
> built in his lifetime, Alan Turing was persecuted as
> a homosexual and
> killed himself, and Bletchley Park was dismantled
> after the war.
>
True on Babbage - he was about 100 years before his time, and his work was pretty much forgotten until the later advent of electronics. But Turing? Sure, he was persecuted, and killed himself at a young age, but in the time he had he did invent most of the theoretical basis of computation. A book I was reading the other day had a great quote about him (in reference to the concept of Turing machines and computability): "In this, as in most areas, Turing had both the first and last word."
Jim Baird
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