Alan Turing's 100th Birthday - Mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, scientist

Alan Turing's 100th Birthday - Mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, scientist(en.wikipedia.org)

146 points by sparknlaunch 13 years ago | 19 comments

jgrahamc 13 years ago |

I persuaded New Scientist to open the special on Turing that I wrote to non-subscribers: http://blog.jgc.org/2012/06/new-scientists-instant-expert-on...

starship 13 years ago |

I don't think it's possible to celebrate Turing's life without mentioning how his life ended. Turing was without a doubt a war hero. His work allowed the Allies to crack the Nazi's enigma code, without which the war could have gone very differently. Nonetheless, a few years after the war the UK government, upon discovering that Turing was gay, prosecuted him for homosexual activities and treated him horrifically. His security clearance was revoked, and it's not hard to imagine that this had something to do with his suicide at age 42. Just something to keep in mind on this gay pride weekend.

It seems the barbarians of medievalism and quackery are always there just outside the gates, ready to drag us back into the dark ages if those who value science over superstition don't proactively keep the light burning.

Anyone know of any Turing events going on in the Bay Area?

padenot 13 years ago | |

There was the ACM Turing 100 conferences last week, but you had to register a while ago. It was a really great celebration, with interventions by a lot of Turing prices (Don Knuth, Vint Cerf, etc.). If you like theoretical computer science, you should definitely take the time to watch the video at [2].

[1]: http://turing100.acm.org/index.cfm?p=home [2]: http://turing100.acm.org/index.cfm?p=webcast

mohawk 13 years ago | |

So unfortunately, in the end, the Nazis did manage to kill him.

rmc 13 years ago | | |

No, not the Nazi's. Homophobia killed him.

It's easy to pretend that it's was the Nazi's and that the Nazi = "Speak German and worship Hitler", and so long as you don't do that, then you're OK and nothing you do or say can be linked to the end of Turing's life.

There is homophobia in many many cultures, all over the place. Even Great Britain.

saljam 13 years ago |

There's a conference in his honour this weekend in Manchester, where he did much of his work. On the list of speakers are Hoare, Knuth, Penrose, Cerf, Kasparov, Fred Brooks, Rodny Brooks, Shamir, and many others. It's quite exciting to get so many luminaries in the same event.

http://www.turing100.manchester.ac.uk/

Edit: It's also quite expensive!

kingofspain 13 years ago | |

relief

A friend asked me this morning if I fancied the Turing event this evening in Manchester. I'm currently skint and a bit under the weather so I had to pass. Seeing the list of speakers I momentarily felt a lot more unwell until I realised that this wouldn't be the same event!

saljam 13 years ago | | |

It was only Jack Copeland today. I had to miss that one as well.

The other public (free) lecture is the Penrose lecture on Monday at 20:00. You still have to register online I think.

haberman 13 years ago |

I'm participating in an event tonight in Seattle that commemorates Turing's life and work: http://synthesist.net/music/turing/

It's very avant-garde -- sort of a mix between a concert and an exhibit. I'm not 100% sure what to expect from it, since I've only been working with a few of the musical elements. It looks interesting though.

SquareWheel 13 years ago |

Check out Google's doodle commemorating Turing's birthday.

http://www.google.co.nz/

excuse-me 13 years ago | |

Why .nz?

.co.uk I could understand, .com ,being the main site, would be an honour, even .de would be subtly ironic - but I can't see the connection with kiwis

Does each Google fiefdom get to do it's own toys without the express command of the chocolate factory?

TazeTSchnitzel 13 years ago | | |

New Zealand is ahead of the US and UK. Google's Doodles are timed by local time and locality. So NZ gets them before the US does.

EDIT: Actually, it's quite interesting to look at Google's page about doodles. Most of the doodles will never be seen by you, since they are country-specific.

dbaupp 13 years ago | | |

Other than the timing differences that TazeTSchnitzel describes, SquareWheel might be from NZ, so .nz is their default Google landing page.

Sthorpe 13 years ago |

Here's to a man who brought newtonian's out of the stone age. Chaos baby,...Chaos.

Ref: http://youtu.be/R6NnCOs20GQ