Everyone's heard of Churchill, but not Turing

Forums: History, Alan Turing, Politics
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Alan Turing, a mathematical genius, born in 1912, INVENTED the computer as a tool for solving a perplexing problem in cryptography, breaking the “Enigma” code used my the Nazis in WWII to communicate with their U-boats in the Atlantic and for sending battlefield orders between Nazi combat units. The Nazis believed the Enigma code was unbreakable, and never guessed the Allies had cracked Enigma.

To crack this unbelievably complex code, the mental skills of the English mathematical genius, Alan Turing was used. Turing knew he needed a hitherto, unimaginably complex “number cruncher", so he invented one to solve the problem. Turing invented the computer!

Turing’s efforts likely saved England in WWII and save the lives of tens of thousands of Allied soldiers fighting the Nazis. Had it not been for one aspect of Turing’s makeup, he would have been elevated as highly as Churchill, but the problem was that Alan Turing was gay (illegal then).

Read about Alan Turing here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

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Type: Discussion • Score: 6 • Views: 1,745 • Replies: 27

@hilbert,

A true, not national, but international hero.

Joe(a victim of unyielding Bible-based fear and hate)Nation

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@hilbert,

Turing is hardly unknown in fact on this very website there are a numbers threads that concern him so you are not bringing any new information to the table here.

The only thing that we can agree on is that Churchill is better known however Turing had a firm place in history both in science and WW2.

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@hilbert,

Turing is very well known over here. There's been coutless dramas and documentaries of late, and there's talk of putting him on a stamp.

1 Reply

The very excellent program RadioLab has done a couple of segments and shows about Turing and his effect on everything we think about computers and intelligence.
Here, Listen up:
http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2012/mar/19/turing-problem/

Joe(I♥RadioLab)Nation

1 Reply

@Joe Nation,

If you have read ww2 history you would have had to run across Turings name and what he did to help win the war.

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I like the (untrue) idea that he's behind the apple-logo.

But otherwise, he's quite known (though in a different league than Churchill)

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@RABEL222,

Rabel, I knew all about Turing back when I was in school in the 1960's.
I was, and am, a nut about a codes and numbers. I read everything I could about Enigma, submarine warfare, bogus dispatches hidden on corpses, etc.

I joined the US Air Force Intelligence Service (USAFSS) in order to be a codebreaker...I took courses, did tests and they told me I'd be no good at it and wouldn't I like to learn to speak Indonesian.

Sore baik kepada Anda. Saya berbicara bahasa Indonesia dengan baik.
Defense Language Institute West Coast Branch.

So it goes.
Joe(and me with it)Nation

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Much smarter than Churchill.

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@Joe Nation,

I like codes too. Keeps the mind nimble. Was that Indonesian? I dont speak it, how a translation if it is.

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@RABEL222,

"Good afternoon to you. I speak Indonesian well."

That's according to google translate. Although it's not without its faults.

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@izzythepush,

izzy says, "Turing is very well known over here"

Where is "over here"? I knew Turing's work well, since I am (retired) scientist, but I have never heard his name mentioned in public

1 Reply

@hilbert,

Where he's from, Britain.

Quote:

Gordon Brown has said he is sorry for the "appalling" way World War II code-breaker Alan Turing was treated for being gay.

A petition on the No 10 website had called for a posthumous government apology to the computer pioneer.

In 1952 Turing was prosecuted for gross indecency after admitting a sexual relationship with a man. Two years later he killed himself.

The campaign was the idea of computer scientist John Graham-Cumming.

He was seeking an apology for the way the mathematician was treated after his conviction. He also wrote to the Queen to ask for Turing to be awarded a posthumous knighthood.

The campaign was backed by author Ian McEwan, scientist Richard Dawkins and gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. The petition posted on the Downing Street website attracted thousands of signatures.

Mr Brown, writing in the Telegraph newspaper, said: "While Mr Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8249792.stm

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@izzythepush,

"Breaking the Code" (a play by Hugh Whitemore) is on the playing schedule (in English but in the translated German version as well) on some German theatres the coming season.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Tommy Flowers needs to be remembered as well.

Quote:

Thomas "Tommy" Harold Flowers, MBE (22 December 1905 – 28 October 1998) was an English engineer. During World War II, Flowers designed Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic computer, to help solve encrypted German messages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

Quote:

Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic computer

I need to check the dates but as far as I am aware of at the moment ENIAC had a claim to that title..

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ENIAC vs. Colossus......we need the answer.

Joe(everybody hold your tickets)Nation

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@BillRM,

While the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computing machine was the ... [Zuse] Z3 (1941). (Colossus, 1943; ENIAC, 1946/1948)

Quote:

We can therefore say that, from an abstract theoretical perspective, the computing model of the Z3 is equivalent to the computing model of today's computers. From a practical perspective, and in the way the Z3 was really programmed, it was not equivalent to modern computers.

Source and more info

Even more infos and links

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@Walter Hinteler,

Interesting as on reading about the program to create ENICA the hardware was used for the military needs of the US during WW2 up to running some programs for the Manhattan project and that was before 1946.

Of course the earlier versions needed to be program by using jumper wires in the hardware so maybe it did not get to be fully automatic computer until 1946?

It been too long ago since I read about the project.

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@BillRM,

I thought that the first known computer was invented by the Greeks around 100 t0 150 bc?

1 Reply

Everyone's heard of Churchill, but not Turing

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