Slashdot Mirror
No Museum Status For UK Home of Enigma Machine
hardsix writes "Despite the numerous films, books and plays, celebrating the brilliant achievements of the code-breakers at Bletchley Park, the UK government is still dragging its feet over providing proper support for the site. There has just been a debate in the House of Lords over whether the site should be given similar status to the UK's main WWII museum — the Imperial War Museum. But the government has brushed off the request, claiming that the site has received enough funding recently.
However, as was shown by a visit to the site by UK actor, and Twitter-lover Stephen Fry, although devices such as Enigma have been restored many of the huts where the code-breaking work went on are in a bad state and more investment is needed."
Why the British government would drag is feet on something like this is an Enigma to me.
There is also a petition to the government to help save Bletchley Park on the number 10 web site.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/BletchleyPark/
I seriously think the government has a problem with Bletchley park in that they were responsible for it's greatest figurehead, Alan Turing's death.
Turing was one of the main founders of modern computing, one of the mathematical greats and he used his abilities to help end the war early by preventing the German war machine keeping it's military secrets, undoubtedly many lives are owed to him.
Of course, for those that don't know his story, in the 50s he was convicted of being gay, something that was illegal at the time and was forced into hormone therapy to try and "cure" him of his homosexuality. This effected the one thing he had and held dearly - his mind, and so he committed suicide (or possibly was assassinated, but that seems unlikely) in 1954.
To this day I believe the British governments through the ages have failed to accept that their parties were responsible for the death of one of the greatest Britons of all time, and I believe the shunning of Bletchley park is a continuation of their refusal to accept that they are at fault for both Turing's death and the lack of realisation of how important Turing and Bletchley was to the British war effort.
At school we're taught about some of the greatest British engineers of all time such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, we're taught about our kings and queens, we're taught about our greatest military leaders, our greatest industrialists, but there is not a single mention of our computer scientists. If you killed loads of people in the name of Britain you'll be fine, if you helped push colonialism across the world you'll go down in history, but if you invent or help to invent the computer? arguably the single most important device of the last 50 years? Good luck your story every being well known.
The fact is, for over 60 years the successive British governments have failed computer science in the UK despite it being one of the most important countries in the world when it comes to it's developmental history from Turing to Berners-Lee to Ive (the guy who designed the iMac and iPod). The decision mentioned in the article is just further evidence of how backwards and ignorant the British government is - it cares about only a few minor sectors such as banking, and look how well that has done us - whilst the likes of Google were announcing record profits, banks had effectively failed. I believe this ignorance and a refusal to foster and support the field has cost the UK an IT industry that could truly have rivalled that of silicon valley.
No, the fact it and the work that was done at the site were the precursor to a whole new field - Computer science and the fact that arguably the most important device in existence today, the computer, were effectively born there is why it should be saved.
It's not just any old computer and it's not just any old site, it's where computer science and the sub-field of artificial intelligence became a reality.
It seems important to save the first "anything" as a celebration of our achievements. It also has a lot of inspirational value for kids when they can see how some of the things that are taken for granted today came about - it's hard to imagine how someone could invent the computer if you look at something as complex as those we use today, but if kids are shown early models they can learn more easily how the things come about.
No-one will ever disregard the machine itself- you don't even have to RTFA to see that "devices such as Enigma have been restored". The government are dragging their collective feet over whether to provide funding to restore the *site*, a collection of 70 year old ramshackle huts. The Enigma will live on, in some machine or other. Maybe it'd even be better in another museum- I imagine that the environment of the Science Museum (for instance) is better suited to keeping it in good tradition than a leaky hut in Bletchley.
For those of you not familiar with ROT13, that deciphers to:
"Uc tiqy mcifgszt, dofzwoasbh."
You haven't kept up with the story elsewhere.
Basically, Bletchley Park wants to be a museum. This is a significant attraction and would make it a lot of money. The House of Lords transcripts show that *everybody* recognises this. The trouble is, until it gets there (which may be several years), it can't afford to fund itself without what basically amounts to charity from third-parties.
Once it's an "official" museum, and it has spent the money it needs on re-building the falling down parts, it can attract thousands of visitors a year, and keep itself ticking over. Until then, they are just throwing money away on basic maintenance.
It *should* be a museum, or at the very least a permanently-funded attraction. It's probably one of the most humanitarian British achievements in centuries. They crunched numbers, invented great mathematics and the entire field of Computer Science, saved lives and ended wars by the application of skill and knowledge. What better inspiration can there be to a modern generation? Nobody was assassinated, no countries were trampled over, no indiginous peoples were wiped out by the work done there (which is already better than 99% of English history).
A post office engineer, a few mathematicians, a whole new invention, application of sheer brain power, whole new areas of science and mathematics discovered, a handful of people to flick switches and they save millions of lives and bring a war to an end without hurting *anyone*. For God's sake, what more do you need to stick the entire place into a big glass box and preserve it for a thousand years?