34 Quotes by Andrew Hodges

For him there had to be a reason for everything; it had to make sense – and to make one sense, not two.

The separation between any two events in the history of a particle shall be a maximum or minimum when measured along its world line.

Yet the system prevailed, in all but details. One could conform, rebel, or withdraw – and Alan withdrew.

HIs chess-playing methods did the same thing – as did the games on the Colossi – and posed the question as to where a line could be drawn between the ‘intelligent’ and the ‘mechanical’. His view, expressed in terms of the imitation principle, was that there was no such line, and neither did he ever draw a sharp distinction between the ‘states of mind’ approach and the ‘instruction note’ approach to the problem of reconciling the appearance of freedom and of determinism.

Alan had become more prepared to go along with the system. It was not that he had ever rebelled, for he had only withdrawn; nor was it now a reconciliation, for he was still withdrawn. But he would take the ‘obvious duties’ as conventions rather than impositions, as long as they interfered with nothing important.

The line between ‘mathematicians’ and ‘engineers’ was demarcated very clearly, and if not quite an Iron Curtain, it was a barrier as awkward as the MacMahon Act.

The opening of a public debate about male homosexuality in Britain in 1952 was the conflict of the small back room, in another sphere.

For him, breaking the Enigma was much easier than the problem of dealing with other people, especially with those holding power.

Hilbert had written of Galileo that in his recantation ‘he was not an idiot. Only an idiot could believe that scientific truth needs martyrdom – that may be necessary in religion, but scientific results prove themselves in time.’ But this was not a trial of scientific truth.