There's a real possibility that he could have advanced fields like AI and cryptography, and knowing his insatiable curiosity, it's quite plausible that entirely new, groundbreaking areas of study could have sparked his obsession.
I used to live 200 yards from that spot. Late at night, stumbling back from a kebab shop after a night in the pub, my mates and I would stop by and say hello.
In halls or an apartment? I applied for Weston Hall when I was at UMIST, but ended up in Fallowfield :( The most important thing that Manchester did was open my mind having grown up in the the bigoted hinterlands of Northern Ireland.
