Cosmologist and author Janna Levi is speaking tonight, Thursday December 4th, at the Tribeca branch of the 92nd St. Y (info here). Levin was a speaker at the Key West Literary Seminar earlier this year where she completely won over even resolute science phobes with her engaging, witty and passionate perspective on, well, existence itself.
She also discussed her book 'A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines', an imaginary historical novel about the unlikely but vital friendship between logician Kurt Godel and Alan Turing, the homosexual mathematician who broke the Enigma code that was pivotal in the outcome of WW2. Turing, who is considered the father of modern computer science, was persecuted for his sexuality, and quite horribly. He was injected with hormones and driven quite mad both by their effects and the cruel isolation he was forced to endure, eventually committing suicide. When I was in Manchester recently I saw this statue of Mancunian Turing in the gay district--note the apple in the statue's hand-Turing killed himself, rather poetically, by eating a poisoned apple.
Check out a podcast from the KWLS with Levin discussing Turing as well as illuminating the mysteries of the universe here. Mark my words, she's so charming and makes incredibly complex subjects so comprehensible that someone is going to tap her to host some kind of regular science talk show.
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