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No Money for Monument to Alan Turing?

Posted by Hemos on from the ashamed-of-ourselves dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "The BBC reports of a project to build a sculpture in honor of computing pioneer Alan Turing that's not doing too well, because attempts to raise money from industry have been fruitless so far... The BBC Story carries more information about the lack of support for this statue by anyone. "

2 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Still an outsider by Ray+Dassen · · Score: 3
    Turing was an outsider during his life, and unfortunately still seems to be.

    To those who are not familiar with his contributions to computing and codebreaking, I'd strongly recommend the biography by Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: The Enigma.

  2. A statue is worthwhile by alistair · · Score: 3

    I think a statue would be worthwhile for a number of reasons. Britain has a number of memorials to Generals and other wartime
    "heroes", it would be nice to honour a man who's contribution to a war was in the application of intelligence rather than high
    explosive, something which is particularly relevant to the current war is the Balkans. It would also serve to remind us of how
    shamefully he was treated by the British authorities, the law changing the homosexual age of consent has not been passed yet,
    and the recent debate in the hose of Lords shows that homophobia is alive and well in the UK almost 50 years after his death.

    As for American corporations contributing to the statue, it is worth remembering that IBM, Microsoft, Oracle etc. employ
    thousands of people in the UK who make a contribution to their profits, it is not unreasonable to ask then to contribute to this.

    But perhaps the most fitting monument would be to cast a 12 inch bronze figure and put on the inscription "Funded by the UK
    Computer Industry". From Alan Turing to Frank Whittle, Britain has a long tradition of producing fine inventors and then
    persecuting or ignoring then. It's a tradition we could do without.