Last year I had the opportunity here at Penn State to see an incredible film at the weekend showing in the HUB here at Penn State. The movie was called The Imitation Game and, though I did not realize it at the time, is quite relevant today to our IST 110 course. This is because the movie tells the story of the famous computer scientist, cryptanalyst, and mathematician Alan Turing—the developer of the Turing machine and unsung hero of World War II.

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3761619968/tt2084970?ref_=tt_ov_i

For those of you who have not seen the film, The Imitation Game follows the life of Alan Turing (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) primarily focusing on his work to crack the code of the Nazi communication machine called Enigma. Turing—along with several other of the brightest Allied mathematicians and analysts—was hired by the British Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park during the midst of World War II to study and decode Enigma’s messages and give the Allies an advantage in the war. This sounds simple enough, but in fact Enigma lived up to its name perfectly. In order to prevent the Allies from decoding daily messages, the machine itself reset daily. This made timing a crucial factor for the Allies and calculations virtually impossible to complete by hand. Enigma had a total of 159,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible inputs—and with only 24 hours to crack the code—it was seen to be unbreakable.

The Imitation Game thus follows Alan Turing in his quest to create the perfect machine to beat the German Enigma. Along the way he seeks the help of several other recruits of the British Government Code and Cypher School as well as the unforeseen addition of a woman (which around the time of World War II was unheard of) and struggles to balance his genius with the ability to cooperate with his team. Turing also struggles with hiding the fact that he is in fact homosexual—a trait seen by the United Kingdom as illegal at the time. In the end, as history has shown, Turing and his team finally discover the algorithm to crack Enigma, and Turing’s unbelievable vision becomes a reality.

Though some may look at this movie as more of a documentary and less of a thrilling film, I have to say this was one of the best movies I’ve seen in the past few years. Not only did it bring excitement with the daily race against the clock, but it also showed true drama and emotion as the audience saw Turing’s daily struggle with society. Though I am a bit of a sap when it comes to movies, I found myself crying by the time the credits appeared. For anyone who loves Benedict Cumberbatch, historical films, or even just a great drama, I would highly recommend The Imitation Game.

Check out the trailer here:

Sources:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2084970/plotsummary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Film