The Imitation Game
Three specific time periods in the life of Cambridge University
Mathematics professor Alan Turing are presented. The first is the span of WWII,
at the beginning of which he, an expert of puzzle solving, is hired by the
British government to work on a team, whose secret project is to break what is
largely seen as the unbreakable secret code behind the Nazis' communications
machine, named Enigma, which if they can would give the Allies an advantage and
possibly even end the war. The problem is that Enigma is recoded every day, so
that even if the team can decipher a coded message transmitted by the Nazis,
that code would be obsolete by the next day. There are
159,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible codes that could be input into Enigma.
A largely arrogant, antisocial, solitary and literal minded man,
Alan is the bane of the team's existence, especially that of his superior,
Commander Denniston, and Hugh Alexander, who is hired as the team's initial
leader. While Hugh and the rest of the team work on breaking the day-to-day
codes, believing that being the only way to learn the secret of Enigma, Alan
works by himself on developing a machine, one somewhat with artificial
intelligence, which he believes is what is required not just to break a daily
code, but break any code immediately when it is input into Enigma. One problem
Alan has is convincing Denniston to fund the machine to the tune of £100,000.
The tone of the team slowly changes with the inclusion of Joan Clarke, the only
female. Joan not only adds another brilliant mind to the team, but also
provides Alan with a sense of how to behave socially to get things accomplished
in a team setting.
Joan's participation in the project is threatened by traditional
values, not by chauvinistic thoughts from her male team members, but that of
her parents, who see her place in the world as someone's wife. The second is
1928, when Alan is a youth attending boarding school. Even then, he is seen as
being different and is bullied because of it. His only real friend at the
school is Christopher Morcom, "Christopher" which is what he would
end up naming his machine, more than just because Christopher Morcom was his
friend. The third is 1951, after Alan's Manchester home is reported broken into
by his neighbor. Because nothing was stolen, Alan is quick to dismiss the
police. But lead investigator, Detective Robert Nock, believes Alan is hiding
something in dismissing them so quickly. What the police discover has far
reaching consequences for Alan's life, but not without Nock wanting first to
know what is hidden beneath the information on the surface.
