Marking 50 Years Since Alan Turing's Death 423
erroneous writes "Today is the 50th anniversary of the death of Alan Turing: mathematician, code breaker, and computer pioneer. He was today commemorated in his home city of Manchester, UK." Here are stories at the BBC and at The Register.
Killed by the society he saved. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:5, Informative)
June 7 1954 Despondent over court-ordered estrogen treatments to cure his homosexuality, Alan Turing commits suicide by consuming an apple laced with cyanide. Turing is considered the founder of modern computing, a pioneer in the field of Artificial Intelligence, and a crucial member of the team that cracked Germany's Enigma cipher in World War II.
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:2, Insightful)
Insightful? Bah. Of course Insightful != Factual (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:3, Informative)
They also featured Sir Isaac Newton under said tree. It's not in reference to biblical events but in homage to Newton and scientific thought. Notice years later Apple created the first PDA which they called the Newton.
See the image here:
http://www.geektimes.com/michael/techno/computing/ hardware/products/apple/ [geektimes.com]
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:2)
I'm a little confused - what's the thought process behind this "treatment"?
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:5, Interesting)
First, in historical context, I believe homosexuality was still considered a mental illness then. Nearly anyone in this time period with a mental disease was treated like trash.
Second, medical practice back then was not as, say, scientific as our approach is today. Treatment and cure experimentation were the focus of the day, not understanding the underlying basis of disease (as noted, homosexuality as considered a mental illness back then).
That said, his so-called treatment fell between medical science as well as societal/legal ramifications.
This is also one of the reasons why it was a huge step to get homosexuality unlisted as a mental disease, something that that vast vast majority in the medical community, conservative or progressive, overwhelmingly agree with. (And also why the scientific and political community has always adjoined and butted heads nearly simultaneously.)
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:5, Insightful)
You think medical practice is any more scientific today than it was in the 1950s? Now, I'm not saying medical research isn't scientific, because it is (although the studies are often questionable due to the special interest groups funding them). It's just that medical practice is often as much voodoo as it was 50 years ago. Neither is clinical psychology any better. Mental illness is often culturally defined. Here in the U.S. in 2004 it just so happens that it's no longer socially acceptable to believe that homosexuality is a mental illness. Doesn't stop a whole lot of nutter Christian fundies from believing otherwise though.
Re: Nutters (Score:3, Insightful)
You're absolutely right. I apologize for letting one of my personal bugaboos from shining through.
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:4, Interesting)
From my limited biological knowledge: Some species (e.g. some frogs) can actually
Granted primates are way more complicated, and the reason might be entirely different. There are tons of weird, "useless" crap that natural selection has left us with. Hell, most human behavior was designed to hunt animals, live in a cave, and die at age 30. Almost nothing about us is "natural" or "useful" any more. Remember natural selection may "select" towards fitness, but it doesn't necessarily deselect things that are not useful but not particularly harmful either. From what I hear about DNA, there is massive amounts of "junk" we carry around, and that we have to support by caloric intake. However that "junk" can really be thought of as a self-decompressing self-decrypting program that comes into affect essentially at birth and at various other times. If you think about it computationally, there is a "limit" to the amount of "stuff" you can describe with DNA. The fascinating thing is how it bootstraps, self-decompresses, self-decrypts, and self-modifies. It's all amazing that it even works at all. It would be like typing random characters into a computer and one day just popping out the Linux kernel.
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes it does. Because of mutations, genes are constantly tested to see if they are important. Useless genes fizzle away after a relatively short length of time. If you see DNA in a cell, its there because its useful for something.
The big point is that bits of DNA have to be useful, but not necessarily useful to *us*. It may be parasitic, and useful to itself.
From what I hear about DNA, there is massiv
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:3, Interesting)
there are a few good hypotheses
Keep in mind that you don't have to reproduce yourself to have reproductive success. The best way is through supporting family members, but benefiting the community can also be a good stratagy, and anything that benefits the species will do. In some cultures it is common for homosexuals to become priests, and I'm not just talking about Catholics here.
If we were to evaluate Mr. Turing's reproductive succ
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, anyone who is 'outcast' for being in the minority with regar
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:3, Interesting)
If there's a darwinian reason for homosexuality, I've never heard it
(this is just some idea of mine, no idea if other people have had it as well)
There are certain species of birds that live in colonies, who will help family members (siblings as well as nieces etc) raising their kids, if they don't have any themselves, or if their own didn't survive. This is obviously a survival trait - genes of birds whose genes lead them to help birds with similar genes have a higher chance to survive, because they in
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:2)
Of course, homosexuality isn't something to be "cured", but it was the 50's... not the most tolerant time.
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's too bad we still haven't come far enough, considering a leader of a democratic nation wants to amend the constitution in order to deny rights to the homosexual segment of the population. One has to wonder if President Bush would approve of forcing chemical castration on homosexuals today.
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as marriages are "sanctified" by the government in the form of licenses, divorce law and the like, no legal definition of marriage should exclude any citizen of legal age from marrying another citizem of legal age, whatever their respective anatomies.
I would finally note that calling for a constitutional amendment in order to strictly define marriag
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:5, Insightful)
Again? I wasn't aware that I said a single word about religion, but then again people are reading a lot more into my short post than is actually there.
As for the reasoning behind the government recognition of marriage, there are other benefits of marriage that have nothing to do with children. One would be shared health care costs - while many companies have opened up their health insurance benefits to unmarried couples, it's by no means universal. Another is in the case of life/death decisions if a partner is incapacitated, perhaps brain dead and on life support. In the absence of a living will, a partner - even if the cohabitation had been going on for 20 years or more - doesn't have the same legal status as a wife/husband. Ditto if a person dies without a will, or if a will is contested. Next of kin status is only afforded to married partners and blood relations.
Not to mention that all of your "raising children" arguments break down if homosexuals are permitted to adopt children (and they are).
In short, as long as the government is affording specific legal rights to married partners which are not extended to homosexual partners, the law is discriminatory...and a constitutional amendement, in my possibly ultra-liberal, apparently anti-religious opinion, would be blasphemy.
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:5, Interesting)
All of that is related, and ends with saying that they are worthy of death for desiring someone of the same sex or accepting others who do. That's in the New Testament. You'd expect that from the old, since it's generally vile, but the New Testament is rather sneaky with its pervasive evil.
Off your post, to say that Christians have nothing to do with Turing's death is illogical. It's one of many things that I believe Christianity has done to hurt modern society.
And on gay marriage, the law either needs to be changed so that you have to have a kid to get married or you allow everyone to. That simple. Your logic is flawed on that fact, since the Christian church does not allow children out of wedlock.
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:2)
This view is no longer widely held as far as I know. Google on estrogen homosexual and there are links discussing the whole issue.
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:3, Interesting)
Homosexuality isn't a disease because homosexuals are already in the state that they want to be in (barring issues of societal acceptance). Homosexuality - attraction to the same sex - has no real barriers apart from societal ones. Transsexuals, however, are not in such a state. Consequently, it is a conditio
Re:Symbolism of the poisoned apple (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet another reason not to use "that's teh ghey" as a term of disparagement.
(Not to mention it just sounds stupid.)
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:4, Insightful)
"I think, that the real problem is, that some of the blacks don't act really normal (well, that's the same for many of our white friends, but that's not the case right now) - they try to act like they were criminals and prostitutes, while that's in my opinion not a behavior I could accept. Many of my friends are black - and I don't really care, what's their race - unless they act like a criminal or prostitute. I still think, that in ordinary situations, a person has to act like we white people do - and if I use the term "black" to describe disparagement - I only mean people, who act like that. That's something, that doesn't really depend on what your race is. Just think about it."
You'd find that incredibly offensive, wouldn't you? Doesn't every sentence bite? Why is it ok to do that to gay people? For God's sake, just because someone has a culture different than yours (and different groups *do* form their own culture - try to talking to a member of the religious right in the deep south, for example), doesn't give you some almighty right to make fun of them. If the world had that sort of mentality as a whole, war and riots would never cease.
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Killed by the society he saved. (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunately, that's the way we geeks get treated a lot of times.
Too bad Turning didn't chose a different approach to dealing with ungrateful masses [azlyrics.com].
GMD
It's quite a tragic story (Score:5, Interesting)
However, I find it tragic and apalling that his life had to end the way it did. With the rampant homophobia in the UK at the time (and, some would say, such feeling still exists, albeit now driven underground), he had no choice but to end his life, else he would face a lifetime of torment and living in the shadows. It's really too bad that otherwise great nations do such stupid things and end up killing their greatest minds. Here's to you, Alan. *clink*
A bit different view (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, and BTW I'm an American.
Re:A bit different view (Score:4, Informative)
Note: there is no evidence to indicate that Turing ever worked as an enemy spy, or that the CIA was involved in his death or was even worried about his loyalty. I am only suggesting that, in this case, the CIA would not have been acting out of pure bigotry, but out of a somewhat reasonable fear of exposure.
Re:A bit different view (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A bit different view (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the reasons why he was treated so badly by the legal organisations (i.e. those that arrested and condemned him for breaking what is now considered an abhorrent law) is that they didn't know what he had done for his country during the war. It was still classified then.
The tradgedy not that Turing brought this on himslef, but that people didn't know any better then.
Re:It's quite a tragic story (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It's quite a tragic story (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's quite a tragic story (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's quite a tragic story (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry. I have poor impulse control.
Overestimating his contributions (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Overestimating his contributions (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Overestimating his contributions (Score:5, Insightful)
Timing (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Overestimating his contributions (Score:5, Informative)
Even with Turing's method not every message was broken (or even intercepted). When the Germans changed procedures and even the design of Engima (in the case of the 4-rotor Naval version) the Allies often lost the ability to break the codes for weeks or months at a time. Often it was captured codebooks that allowed the codes to be read. Without Turing's work other ways to gain the required intelligence would have been found.
Even if the Allies had of lost the ability to read Enigma-coded messages entirely it is not clear that it would have lost them the war. It's extremely difficult to assess these sorts of scenarios, of course, but don't forget that Enigma intelligence was only one small part of the intelligence available to the Allies.
Most Enigma cracking during the Battle of the Atlantic was based on captured codebooks, up until the start of February 1942. That is when the German navy switched to the 4-rotor Engima. Little progress was made against that until the capture of the new codebooks from U-559 at the end of October. Bletchley wasn't regularly cracking Enigma again until mid-December. So for 10.5 months during the most intense period of the Battle of the Atlantic no Enigma intelligence was available. Cracking Enigma was a big factor in winning the Battle of the Atlantic but it was not the only factor (radar was another for example), and it is not clear that we would have lost the battle without Engima.Re:Overestimating his contributions (Score:2)
Re:Overestimating his contributions (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Overestimating his contributions (Score:2)
I'd look really sexy in lederhosen...
Not really *but* (Score:5, Informative)
Interestingly Rejewski made it first to France (where his work on Enigma continued) and then to Britain. Where his talents were wasted and he was apparently shocked after the war to learn what had gone on at Bletchley. After the war he went back to Poland and worked in a factory.
It seems cryptanalysts often got the short end of the stick, alas.
Re:Not really *but* (Score:5, Informative)
Highly recommended book, that. Lots of stuff, not just on Enigma and World War II, but a long way before and after, even including some interesting stuff on Champollion and Ventris (Egyptian hieroglyphics and Mycenaean Greek writing)... did you know RSA was invented independently in the UK but the discoverer couldn't talk about it until long after it had been reinvented in the US?
Re:Overestimating his contributions (Score:5, Interesting)
That being said, one of the major drivers FOR information technology was the sheer computation requires to advance in many OTHER fields, so computer science would probably have marched onwards.
Re:Overestimating his contributions (Score:3, Insightful)
The Church-Turing Thesis is all about computabily, not the process used to model it.
Tony Sale (Score:5, Informative)
Turing Test (Score:5, Funny)
[aturing@thegreatbeyond.net] Yes.
[l337_h4x0r] u r a b0t.
[aturing@thegreatbeyond.net] Damnit, for the last time, I am not a bot!
Re:Turing Test (Score:4, Funny)
A truly brilliant man (Score:5, Informative)
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathemat
Not only did he (amongst others) crack the German Luftwaffe enigma codes, but those of the German navy, which were far more difficult. His work was pioneering on several fronts. Surely the world is a far better place for his having lived in it.
German Enigma (Score:5, Informative)
Turing test? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Turing test? (Score:5, Interesting)
Alan Turing's Machine in Cellular Automata (Score:2, Informative)
While the turing machine is an amazing creation, I find the more recent work on Cellular Automata to be an interesting addition to the discoveries that worlfram made years ago.
Cellular automata are desceptively simple rulesets that produce extremely complex patterns - through a rule that can be encoded into a 8 bit number, you can produce Turing machines, as well as chaotic patterns.
To learn more about cellular automata, visit the MathWorld page [wolfram.com]
Re:Alan Turing's Machine in Cellular Automata (Score:5, Insightful)
was the seminal work on artificial intelligence and computation. Cellular automata are more an outgrowth of this work. They aren't even that different from Turing machines - they maintain a state and have rules for changing that state depending on their neighbours.
And Wolfram certainly hasn't discovered much that's impressed anyone else working in the physics / computer science world.
Re:Alan Turing's Machine in Cellular Automata (Score:3, Insightful)
Turing's chess machine (Score:5, Interesting)
some thoughts... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:some thoughts... (Score:4, Interesting)
It is possible that he is the most important computer scientist of all time. He is of course against some strong competition, but in my opinion the only one in his league is Von Neumann. There is hardly a concept in computer science that was not at least considered in basic form by Turing.
As for the war, the phrase "some decent contributions" doesn't do him justice. An argument can be made that he was the most important individual in WW2. That may be overstating it, but I would consider him to be one of the key persons. I think it is entirely possible that if you removed Turing from history, the Nazis could have ended up winning the war in Europe.
Didn't know he had a statue (Score:5, Interesting)
However I can find an Alan Turing Road in Guildford but nothing in Manchester as the article implies.
Re:Didn't know he had a statue (Score:3, Informative)
Easily the greatest Mancurian of all time (Score:2, Funny)
Mancunian or Manchurian? (Score:3, Informative)
A Manchurian is someone from Manchuria in Northeast Asia.
Besides which, the Inspiral Carpets are from Northwich in Cheshire.
At my school... (Score:2)
Re: Free Mal_Vu (Score:2, Offtopic)
Contrary to popular belief, mal_vu [attrition.org] didn't really pass a Turing test -- she would have had to fool real people as well as FBI agents.
50/50 (Score:4, Funny)
Coincidence? Well, yeah, probably.
Re:50/50 (Score:2)
There is something strange afoot.
A Great Man (Score:5, Interesting)
Although the nature of his persecution and suicide are unfortunate, I'm somewhat glad of the fact that it's often talked about--things like this and worse are still happening in many parts of the world.
That said, I prefer not to dwell on it. I am merely grateful that I and others have such a man to look up to in a field that so often seems at present to have so little diversity.
Here's to Alan Turing, a Great Man.
Re:A Great Man (Score:5, Insightful)
Friend, you are mistaken. "This field" may have "little diversity" in its clothes, hairstyle, and fiction preferences, yes. But, in the arena in the mind, you are very mistaken. I've never seen some beautiful things--come in so many forms--from the minds of tech/CS/math people. It's just that, by mainstream's standards, many of their works and endeavors are dismissed over more glamorous and glittery things such as Britney Spears new video, crap prime time TV, a hot new sports car, a stylish outfit, or looking buf on the beach.
IMHO, it's the artists, super-engineers, and super-scientists/academics who have the most diversity--it's just that, as you no doubt know, that diversity and pusle of life isn't seen with the eyes. It's seen with keen insight into their words, works, and actions. If the people you hang with are truely talented and driven but aren't "diverse" enough for you, then it's because you don't really know them.
Re:A Great Man (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A Great Man (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A Great Man (Score:3, Interesting)
Fair enough. And you're right--along with other poster who pointed out the percise definition of diveristy--there is often a narrow spectrum of social demographics in the CS/math/tech/engineer community. Is this really a "problem" per se? Sure, it's not preferrable all thing
Re:A Great Man (Score:3, Interesting)
You might be surprised... I'm not sure about CS students in general, but the hacker subculture at least has more than its share of non-heterosexuals. Of course, gay nerds being generally as socially inept and introverted as straight nerds, that's not likely to do you much good. =]
And remember! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And remember! (Score:4, Funny)
Buried his money, forgot where it was (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Buried his money, forgot where it was (Score:4, Interesting)
Alan Turing info in spanish (Score:2, Informative)
site1 [www-etsi2.ugr.es]
site2 [wikipedia.org]
Btw, how many programs try to hack the turing machine?
Turing's AI studies probably created computers... (Score:5, Informative)
He likened new technology devices such as cameras and microphones to parts of the human body and his views often landed him in heated debates with other scientists.
Turing believed an intelligent machine could be created by following the blueprints of the human brain. He wrote a paper in 1950 describing what is now known as the Turing Test.
The test consisted of a person asking questions via keyboard to both a person and an intelligent machine. He believed that if computer's answers could not be distinguished from those of the person after a reasonable amount of time, the machine was somewhat intelligent. This test has become a standard measure of the artificial intelligence community.
Re:Turing's AI studies probably created computers. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Turing's AI studies probably created computers. (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider this, a human 4 year is intelligent by most people's measures. However, if you were to replace me with a 4 year old in a turing test, it would be obviously not myself and thus, not 'intelligent'.
Similarly, if the turing test was conducted in chinese, and you asked me to fill in the part of the computer, I would also fail it.
Homage (Score:3, Insightful)
It's terrible that the world saw more value in vilifying him as a homosexual than eulogizing him as a genious.
Didn't he invent... (Score:3, Funny)
Here's to you, Alan Turing. (Score:4, Insightful)
What enraged me even more than the injustice of it all, the stupid, pointless unfairness, was the fact that he was well in the middle of his most productive years. Who knows what he would have come up with if he hadn't been hounded to death?
It is as if Isaac Newton had been struck down in the middle of his life---how much would physics have lost? How dare they! I believe that we shall not see his like again.
By Turing's death, we are all diminished.
--grendel drago
Loebner Prize is Turing test instantiated (Score:4, Informative)
"In 1990 Hugh Loebner agreed with The Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies to underwrite a contest designed to implement the Turing Test. Dr. Loebner pledged a Grand Prize of $100,000 and a Gold Medal for the first computer whose responses were indistinguishable from a human's. Each year an annual prize of $2000 and a bronze medal is awarded to the most human computer. The winner of the annual contest is the best entry relative to other entries that year, irrespective of how good it is in an absolute sense."
Further information on the development of the Loebner Prize and the reasons for its existence is available at Loebner's web site [loebner.net].
Turing, Godel, Einstein, what a time! (Score:3, Informative)
Turing's time was fantastic, just imagine two 'monsters' like Turing and Godel working toghether!
ie) Turing liked to view 'intelligent' systems as complex formal systems, when asked about how 'free' or 'creative' behaviour could emerge from a formal system, he simply stated than error conditions on physical objects are also inavoidable, so although formal systems are of course deterministic, no real implementation can be said to be free of defects, and so it cannot be said to be fully deterministic..
What's in a sig?
Re:On a side note (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, the statue [btinternet.com] they made for him does feature the apple.
I wonder if that's how Jobs, Woz, and Co. got their name? At very least, they must have known about the connotation. It seems kind of sick to me.
Re:On a side note (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:On a side note (Score:3, Informative)
There are photos of his statue here [turing.org.uk] and here [btinternet.com]. Having seen these, I think I should go and see it in person some day.
Re:It's not a troll (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's not a troll (Score:4, Insightful)
Relgious-based intolerance was the root cause, not homosexuality. There is no problem with homosexuality if you live in a tolerant society, just as there are no problems with being black or a woman if you live in an enlightened society--not that we do, but you get the point.
And by the way, if you think it's on-topic just because it's sort-of, half-way, in part related to the real cause, do you also think it is on-topic for me to point out that G. Dubya Bush was an alcoholic coke fiend who has the IQ of a two-by-four every time there is an article about him anywhere?
Homosexuality didn't cause Turing's death any more than Bush's drug addictions caused him to be perhaps the stupidest elected official of modern times.
Re:gay? big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
For gay men like me, these days, in an increasingly civilised society, its not such a big deal. I can't yet marry a partner and its legal for me to be sacked because I am gay, but its not too bad.
But within my lifetime, it has been a very big deal. Forty years ago, I would have been imprisoned as a criminal. Isn't that a big deal?
For Alan Turing it was such a big deal it lead to his death.
Think of all that we lost; all he could have given us, because in his time it was a big deal.
Re:WW-II could have been lost... modern parallel (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess we'll never know.