The Thinking Machine was the creation of American novelist Jacques Futrelle, one of numerous 'detective' characters inspired during the early Twentieth Century by the popularity of Arthur Conan Doyle's master detective, Sherlock Holmes. The Thinking Machine was the nickname of Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen, a scientist turned armchair detective, who possesses a peculiar and unemotional personality - and a massive intellect - that he applies in a most logical manner to solving crimes, always assisted by an investigative reporter.