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Remembering Alan Turing On His 99th Birthday

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the your-machines-confound-me dept.

Blacklaw writes "Today marks the 99th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing, a noted polymath and cryptanalyst who is regarded by many as being the grandfather of modern computing."

19 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. Thank you by Haedrian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Thank you mister Turing. Sorry about the whole anti-gay thing.

    Sent from my physical implementation of Turing Machine.

    1. Re:Thank you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Hey, in the US we did the same thing with our World War II scientist-hero, only we started calling Oppenheimer a "communist" instead.

      Oppenheimer and Turing won that fucking war, and this is what they got for it.

    2. Re:Thank you by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It was therefore right (in the sense of the community he was working in/for) to get rid of him.

      You are either ignorant of what happened to Turing, or a total asshole.

      Turing was not just let go from an intelligence related job, which would be bad enough. He was convicted of "indecency" and made to undergo chemical castration via estrogen injections. There is nothing "right" about what happened to him.

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    3. Re:Thank you by dkleinsc · · Score: 2

      Sent from my physical implementation of Turing Machine.

      Ok, I'm impressed - where do you keep your infinitely large memory tape?

      But seriously, that guy was probably as much a part of the Allied victory as General Patton was, and proof that homophobia hurts all of us.

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    4. Re:Thank you by Haedrian · · Score: 3, Informative

      English public schools are and always have been full of faggotry.

      Not sure whether you chose that word by accident - but "Fagging" (same root) was common in english public schools and it had nothing to do with homosexuality.

      https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Fagging

    5. Re:Thank you by ArcherB · · Score: 2

      If you didn't shout from the rooftops about it, no-one cared or cares. But "faggot!" has, until 30 years ago, been an excellent excuse to get rid of someone you don't like - just as "terrorist!" is used today. (Remember, the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist is that the former is on your side.)

      Terrorist: a radical who employs terror as a political weapon; usually organizes with other terrorists in small cells; often uses religion as a cover for terrorist activities.

      "Freedom Fighters" do not try to invoke fear in a civilian population. Freedom Fighters do not target civilian populations. Terrorists do both.

      To get back on topic, Turing ended his life before his lifestyle was deemed acceptable. It is a real shame. If he could have stuck it out for a few more years, he could have been an example that who one likes to bed with has no effect on their professional competency.

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    6. Re:Thank you by mbkennel · · Score: 2

      Oppenheimer probably was a socialist or communist politically, but still he never cooperated with the USSR or was there any suggestion he ever would.

      The issue of being homosexual was a problem when they had to stay in the closet---you were susceptible to blackmail, e.g. from foreign intelligence services who didn't have a problem finding this stuff out or using it.

    7. Re:Thank you by tnk1 · · Score: 2

      The freedom fighter vs. terrorist labels are silly because they are apples and oranges. Being a freedom fighter is a label that describes your goals and being a terrorist describes your strategy. Fighting for freedom can employ terror tactics and terrorists may support a repression instead of opposing it (ie. pro-government death squads). The terms are not mutually exclusive nor are they directly opposing.

      As long as Mandela believed that private citizens were targets, he was a terrorist. It didn't matter if he stopped actual civilian attacks at some point if he did not change his general strategy. As long as his group considered civilians as primary targets, as opposed to collateral damage to be avoided, they were a terrorist group. Obviously, the outside world's general impression of Mandela as a terrorist could only be informed by their observations, so Mandela's actions over twenty years could allow him to shed his terrorist label, whereas if bin Laden had decided to become a non-terrorist the day before he was shot, it's unlikely we would ever know (or believe) it, even if it was 100% true.

      At the same time, Mandela was always a freedom fighter, whereas bin Laden was not so much. Mandela wanted freedom for the black majority, bin Laden wanted an Islamic caliphate which imposed a minority order on the larger population.

      When you hear the false dichotomy of terrorist vs. freedom fighter you are only comparing the connotations of the two words. The reason for that is that it can be tricky to separate the goals of a fighter from their methods. For instance, I don't think anyone doubts that the Palestinians are getting shat on. The question is, what is the best way of ensuring that they can live in peace and prosperity. Although many of the Palestinian terrorist groups are co-opted by other states like Iran, if you take their rhetoric at its face value, their goals are legitimate, its their methods that are violent, counterproductive, and generally vile. They are therefore, terrorist freedom fighters. Obviously, they emphasize the freedom fighter part, to make themselves look good, and the other side emphasizes the terrorist side to get the negative connotation. They're both being inaccurate for their own reasons.

      As far as Dresden goes, Dresden was a terror bombing. It was a terrorist act because it employed terror in the attempt to attain its strategy. So, like Nelson Mandela, Bomber Command and the US Air Force were engaging in terrorist acts and thus, could be labeled terrorists.

      However, given who they were fighting, they could also be labeled freedom fighters. There is no dissonance even if they engaged in a terrorist act. Additionally, it should be pointed out that Germany used terror bombing in Spain and in Rotterdam to accomplish its goals. Terror bombing Dresden was much, much worse, but we are not talking about a bombing that was singular, one-sided, and unprovoked.

      So why is everyone uptight about the Palestinians and al-Queda? Isn't Dresden the same thing, so don't we deserve it? Sure we do, but only if you subscribe to the notion someone else being a murderous thug in the past gives you the right to be a murderous thug too. Personally, I have always felt that you don't get to claim the high ground by taking the low road, no matter how many people take the same path.

  2. And shamefully treated too. by Gandalf_the_Beardy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I always wonder what more he would have gone on to if he hadn't been branded a pervert - one of the UK Govt's more shameful episodes.

    As it was, the Turing machine remains an excellent means of terrorising computing undergraduates. I've never seen such confusion when we saw the concept for the first time in class.

    1. Re:And shamefully treated too. by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Andy Wiles was over 30 when he proved Fermat's Last Theorem...

      --
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  3. If he's so smart how come he's dead? by bazmail · · Score: 2

    Yeah go ahead.....

  4. Re:Polymath? by Hazel+Bergeron · · Score: 4, Funny

    Cockney rhyming slang for a bath. The man was a large iron/enamel basin. And basins give a ringing sound when you strike them. Two strikes, turings. Whence the Turing machine.

  5. Re:Why 99 by mr1911 · · Score: 2

    We will get to that in about a year.

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  6. Re:Polymath? by Gandalf_the_Beardy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Someone who is skilled in multiple different disciplines like Leonardo da Vinci, (Painting, sculpture, engineer, physicist, astronomer, anatomist, geologist, architect) or perhaps Jefferson, (author, lawyer, musician, botanist, diplomat)

  7. Re:And Google forgot this... by Hazel+Bergeron · · Score: 5, Interesting

    However.

  8. Turing, victim of hypocrisis by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While we're in dire need of your skills, we'll look past your "oddities", but as soon as the fag did his part he can as well go to hell.

    How many good people do we have to lose due to hypocrites and stupid laws influenced by religion before we notice that the Gallileos and Turings did more to our progress as humans than all the bible thumpers together?

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  9. Re:Why 99 by agentgonzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Slashdot is trying to atone for its past history of posting news stories months after they happen by being a whole year early for this particular one. Also, expect three threads on the subject next year.

  10. Re:Why 99 by jonescb · · Score: 2

    We start counting from 0 here.

  11. Horribly sad story. by bodland · · Score: 2

    I learned about Turing many years ago, but his personal story was only made aware to me recently.

    I am glad to see that apologies have been made but it doesn't make up for the tragedy of a brilliant man...a brilliant gay pioneer.

    Speculation on if he committed suicide fails to mention that a dramatic side effect of estrogen use in males is the development of female secondary sexual characteristics, a "second pubery". Two years on estrogen injections that no doubt were at quite a high dosage to supress testosterone, Turing more than likely developed noticeable breasts accompanied by fat shifts and loss of muscle mass...not to mention the atrophy of the genitals...

    One could speculate it was extremely difficult for a sexually active healthy gay man in his early 40's to undergo a "forced transition". After two years Turing was probably seeing his body turn quite female as subcutaneous fat settled into female patterns on his body and muscle tone gives way to a more smooth appearance, and body hair reduces to a terminal stage and become less vigorous. Other effects include reduction in stamina and aggression as well as physical strength. His sexuality and attractiveness to other gay men was being taken away from him. It was likely too much...add to it the extreme effects on emotions caused by the influence of estrogen if his dosage was not maintained consistently it would result in wildly shifting levels of testosterone and estrogen resulting in more emotional instability.

    It would not be surprising that he could no longer live himself. In the end his story ends as another example, in a long string, of cruelties society has inflicted on gay people throughout history.