Science
Related: About this forumAlan Turing and his machines - fresh insights into the enigma
It is fitting that the greatest code-breaker of World War Two remains a riddle a hundred years after his birth. Alan Turing, the brilliant, maverick mathematician, widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, invented an electromagnetic machine called the 'bombe' which formed the basis for deciphering Germanys Enigma codes.
The man himself has rather eluded definition: painted (too easily) as a nutty professor with a squeaky voice; as a quirky, haphazard character with a sloppy appearance by his mother and schoolmasters; by colleagues as a gruff, socially awkward man; and by his friends as an open-hearted, generous and gentle soul.
The crucial contribution Turing made at Bletchley Park, one that has been credited with shortening the war by two years and saving countless lives, did not become public knowledge until twenty years after his death. His mother, brother and friends did not know until long after theyd mourned him, the extent of his heroism.
Despite his premature death aged 41, Turing was so prolific and ground-breaking that the Science Museum is dedicating an entire exhibition to what sprang from his mind. It will showcase his machines, his mathematics and his work on codes and morphogenesis, but will also tell the extraordinary story of his life.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/history/alan-turing-and-his-machines--fresh-insights-into-the-enigma-7847660.html
longship
(40,416 posts)I love the Enigma story so I already know a good part of his story. This makes me want to learn more.
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)That gives you an insight to him : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157583/ That was based on Turing.
We also had a tv documentary on him here in the UK years back. I'll see if I can find a link to that too.
edit to add : found this - Breaking the Code: Biography of Alan Turing (Derek Jacobi, BBC, 1996)
hopefully that will play outside of the UK
whathehell
(29,115 posts)Great story.
rurallib
(62,492 posts)bvar22
(39,909 posts)A good case could be made that if Germany had had those two years,
they would have won the war.
In 1945, Germany had operational jet fighters,
V-2 Ballistic Missiles,
and there is now evidence that they might have successfully tested the world's first Atomic Bomb.
If Germany had had an additional two years, and they mated the Atomic Bomb to the V-2 (or V-3?)
Ballistic Missile, the outcome of WW2 would have been very different.
At any rate, an enthusiastic DURec for Alan Turing and ALL the NERDS at Bletchley Park!
Lionel Mandrake
(4,078 posts)Old evidence (the Farm Hall transcripts) shows beyond any doubt that the Germans were way behind the Allies in their effort to build a nuclear weapon. Heisenberg et al. had the wrong ideas about the critical mass of Uranium-235 and the way to build a reactor to produce plutonium. They were convinced that nobody could build a nuclear bomb during WW2.
You said "there is now evidence that they might have successfully tested the world's first Atomic Bomb". What is your source for this statement?
bvar22
(39,909 posts)"The important thing in my book is the finding that the Germans had an atomic reactor near Berlin which was running for a short while, perhaps some days or weeks," he told the BBC. "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4348497.stm
There was even a 1 hr TV special that examined the site in Thuringia.
AFIC, the eyewitness reports are shaky,
but the video from the site of the alleged "Reactor" combined with the radiation measurements
got my attention.
Of course, it could have all been faked for TV. I don't really trust any Media anymore, even the BBC after their pitiful performance during the Blair Administration and the invasion of Iraq,
and the BBC was careful NOT to endorse the claims, but merely reported them.
I have filed this in the Possible, but not really Plausible category until further evidence.
daaron
(763 posts)Amazing storytelling, characters, plot - this book's got it all, plus historical fiction with Alan Turing in full flaming glory!
Here's the part of the article that struck me most:
Were calling the exhibition Code-breaker because of Bletchley, but also because Turing broke the codes of science in his work and the codes of society through his homosexuality, says David Rooney, head curator at the Science Museum.
The State which Turing had fought to protect cruelly turned on him in 1952. He was found guilty of gross indecency for homosexual acts avoiding prison by agreeing to a now unthinkable condition of probation: chemical castration. He took Stilboestrol, a pill containing female hormones, but was removed from his government work and felt himself to have been placed under observation. As the holder of State secrets, who was in 1950s attitudes a sexual deviant, he was a dangerous outcast.
He was found dead on 7 June 1954, a few weeks before his 42nd birthday, after biting into an apple laced with cyanide.