HODGES, Andrew
Andrew Hodges is unusual for combining his work as a professional mathematician with writing of a distinctive personal and historical character. In 1983 he published Alan Turing: the enigma, the biography of Alan Turing (1912-1954) which succeeded in wrapping together Turing’s life as the founder of computer science, chief World War II codebreaker and as persecuted gay man.
Andrew Hodges’s work brought this hidden story to a wide readership and it has remained in print ever since. It has appeared in numerous translations, and was dramatised for stage and television by High Whitemore under the title Breaking the Code.
Andrew Hodges has subsequently published a shorter text on Turing as a philosopher (1997), numerous articles and reviews, and maintains a large website devoted to Turing.
In 2007 he published a popular book on mathematics, One to Nine, which is now currently appearing in several translations.
He is a Fellow of Wadham College, University of Oxford, and is a colleague of Zeno author Sir Roger Penrose. His main work is on a new approach to fundamental physics called ‘twistor string theory’, which was initiated by Roger Penrose, and which Andrew Hodges hopes one day to explain to a wider readership.