10 replies to this topic

[The Lorcan Nagle]

Alan Turing is one of the most important people of the last century - in my opinion the most important. His work on information technology gave us the framework for electronic computers. He lead the team who cracked the Enigma code. In his later years he studied biology and codified the concept of morphogenesis.

He was persecuted and chemically castrated by the British government for nothing more than being gay, which eventually lead to his suicide at the tragically young age of 41. He never knew how his work would change the world.

It's my firm belief that we live in a better world today for Alan Turing, and I plan to celebrate his life today. Possibly by arsing around online...

[Miqque Loveland]

To celebrate, we should all go for a ride in a Turing car!

[brucegray666]

There's a petition online to get him on the ten pound note. I'm signing it and would encourage others to do so too.

EDIT: Link would be useful wouldn't it!

https://submissions....petitions/31659

EDIT 2: there's also a petition trying to get him pardoned for his "crime"

https://submissions....petitions/23526

[Steve Sensible]

There's a Google doodle in his honour today.

[The Lorcan Nagle]

Yeah, it's a turing machine that you have to program to spell Google in binary. Took me a few attempts to complete it.

[garjones]

An interesting article here that casts a lot of doubt on the suicide verdict:

At a conference in Oxford on Saturday, Turing expert Prof Jack Copeland will question the evidence that was presented at the 1954 inquest.
He believes the evidence would not today be accepted as sufficient to establish a suicide verdict.
Indeed, he argues, Turing's death may equally probably have been an accident.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092

[The Lorcan Nagle]

If I recall, his mother disputed the suicide verdict too.

[garjones]

If I recall, his mother disputed the suicide verdict too.

Yeah it mentions it in the article. The court at the time does seem to maybe have come to the conclusion he was unstable because of his sexuality. This quote from the coroner.

"In a man of his type, one never knows what his mental processes are going to do next." What he meant by "of this type" is unclear.

[Mike Cooper]

Alan Turing was an amazing man, alright.

In addition to his more famous achievements, he'd hypothesised about fractals and other "chaotic" mathematical patterns back in th 40's, well before he or anyone else had the computer power to be able to create them. Its apalling to think he could have lived to see his suspicions confirmed in the 70's, when Mandelbrot and others first visualised them, were it not for his trreatment at the hands of the authorities.

Edited by Mike Cooper, 23 June 2012 - 04:01 PM.

[The Lorcan Nagle]

Yeah it mentions it in the article. The court at the time does seem to maybe have come to the conclusion he was unstable because of his sexuality. This quote from the coroner.

There was a great documentary about him on Channel 4 last year called Britain's Greatest Codebreaker (sadly, it's not on 4OD, and youtube only has links to scam sites), and it posited that his depression was a direct result of his treatment at the hands of the government, and it frustrated him immensely.

[Steve Sensible]

Finally completed the Google doodle, although I had no idea what I was doing