The year is 1954.
Alan Turing, is returning home from work at the University of Manchester where he is using the recently installed Ferranti Mark 1 computer to further his researches on morphogenesis and other matters. This behemoth of a machine with 4,000 valves, 2,500 capacitors, 15,000 resistors, 100,000 soldered joints and 6 miles of wire boasts a huge 5120 bit random access CRT memory, 72kbytes of magnetic drum storage and can carry out over 800 additions every second; but for Turing this is not nearly enough. He dreams of the day when a computer can play chess as well as he can and can even fool us into thinking that it might be conscious. After all, isn’t the human brain just a computer with nerves instead of valves?