A alan turing, the intellectual father of the modern computer, had a theory. He believed that one day machines would become so powerful that they would think just like humans. He even devised a test, which he called "the imitation game," to herald the advent of computers that were indistinguishable from human minds. But as Benedict Cumberbatch's performance in the new movie The Imitation Game shows, Turing's heroic and tragic life provides a compelling counter to the concept that there might be no fundamental difference between our minds and machines. As we celebrate the cool inventions that sprouted this year, it's useful to look back at the most important invention of our age, the computer, which along with its accoutrements, microchips and digital networks is the uber innovation from which most subsequent Ubers and innovations were born. But despite the computer's importance, most of us don't know who invented it. That's because, like most innovations of the digital age, it has no single creator, no Bell or Edison or Morse or Watt.
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