[ExI] turing again

[spike]

Good Alan Turing article:

 

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/after-hours/2012/03/03/alan-turing-10-ideas-beyond-enigma-40095181/?tag=content;siu-container

 


Alan Turing: 10 ideas beyond Enigma


By S Barry Cooper, 3 March, 2012 12:00 <http://www.zdnet.co.uk/2012/03/03/>  

 

ANALYSIS

There is nothing remarkable about mathematicians' achievements going unrecognised in a wider world changed by their discoveries. 

The hidden history of Alan Turing is just a particularly bizarre example — one we can expect to become much better known during the 2012 centenary of his birth. 

The mental checklist of things that make Turing remembered includes:

*	Being just 24 years old when he came up with the idea of the "stored program" computer, basically the blueprint for every computer in existence today;
*	His leading role at the secret decoding centre at Bletchley Park <http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/security/2011/12/15/google-donates-550000-to-bletchley-park-40094660/> , helping shorten the Second World War by two years with his groundbreaking involvement in building and fully exploiting decoding machines <http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/after-hours/2011/05/26/tunny-code-breaker-rebuilt-at-bletchley-park-40092902/> ;
*	His seminal role in the actual designing and programming the early computers <http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/security/2011/02/25/turing-papers-saved-for-the-uk-40091940/>  after the war, and his still important influence on how computer scientists see artificial intelligence;
*	The innovative and original work in bringing mathematics to bear on important problems in biology and medicine
*	And his disgraceful neglect, and prosecution for being gay, in 1950s Manchester.

More…

 

 

 

 

spike

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