The rarefied world of early 20th-century mathematics seems light years away from today's PCs and virtual-reality video games. Yet it was a 1936 paper by Cambridge University mathematician Alan M. Turing that laid the foundation for the electronic wonders now crowding into every corner of modern life. In a short and eventful life, Hiring also played a vital role in World War II by helping crack Germany's secret codes―only to be persecuted later for his homosexuality.
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