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Looking At Turing

Posted by Hemos on from the down-memory-lane dept.

Jim Jones has written in with the first of a series that explores the history of Mr. Alan Turing, and his connection with digital computing.

3 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. Alan Turing by serpent0r · · Score: 5, Informative

    I must say, Alan Turing is my favorite computer scientist, however I don't believe he get's the recommendation that he deserves. They just created a memorial for him, and the site states that they could not find funding from not even one major corporation. They had to rely on donations from the public. Here is the site. Alan Turing Memorial Site -Matt

    --
    The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers. -- Bill Gates,
  2. Re:What a teaser! by sylvester · · Score: 5, Funny

    > who doesn't know what a "Turing Test" is?

    I'm sorry, I don't what you mean by "Turing Test". Perhaps we can talk about something else for a while.

    :-)

    --
    -Rob Ewaschuk
  3. King's College - Turing's College by MikeCamel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I went to King's College Cambridge, where Turing has the computer room named after him, and where, like one of the college's other famous sons, Rupert Brooke, he is certainly remembered, and respected. Cryptonomicon and Turing: The Enigma are both excellent reads, but we should remember the three places where his name really should live on: first, the Turing Test (for AI), second, in the Turing Machine, and third, in the the Church-Turing hypothesis.

    Alan wasn't the first scientist to be gay - though he was one of the first high-profile scientists to die at least partly as the result of his sexuality. I'm not sure whether he would have made a good poster child (as our US cousins would put it), but he was a fascinating person, and a great one. He was certainly one of the founders of our community - I wonder how he would feel about it now?