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Marking 50 Years Since Alan Turing's Death
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.
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*
[l337_h4x0r] alan d00d r u 4 real?
[aturing@thegreatbeyond.net] Yes.
[l337_h4x0r] u r a b0t.
[aturing@thegreatbeyond.net] Damnit, for the last time, I am not a bot!
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Turing test anyone?
404
I think what they ment was without him, Hitler would be drinking tea at No.10, but he did have a pretty big impact.
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Is it any coincidence that Apple Computers has a logo of an apple with only one bite in it?
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
I don't know how it is in more diverse places, but it often seems like I'm the only gay man majoring in Computer Science, and I remember years ago it was such a relief to find that arguably the most recognized name in the field was gay.
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.
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..there's no umlaut in Türing!
At first, they gave (male) homosexuals testosterone. After all, they were "too girly", right? Well shit, that just turned them into raging aggressive horny homosexuals. So, since that didn't work, they thought "what the heck, let's do the opposite". They had no clue, but kept experimenting. Never seemed to cross their minds just to leave the poor guys alone.
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.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
...as we know them today. Turing believed that machines could be created that would mimic the processes of the human brain. He acknowledged the difficulty people would have accepting a machine to rival their own intelligence, a problem that still plagues artificial intelligence today.
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.
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
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.
There are 2 things to consider here I think most people are missing. I'm not saying what happened made it right, but people seem to be lacking context. Frequently, we look back at things and say horrific, but we wouldn't be where we are today if those events in the past hadn't taken place. (I personally find it ridiculous to piss on Thomas Jefferson because he had slaves, Lincoln because he didn't believe blacks could ever be equal to whites, or Columbus for causing genocide simply because he "discovered" the Americas.)
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.)
The real story
Turing's 1936 paper "On Computable numbers, with an application to the entsheidungsproblem"
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.
:wq
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.
That's scary.