Alan Turing is a rare figure amongst the many historical worthies of post-war Britain. He would, at first, seem an unlikely candidate to become a popular icon. He worked within a comparatively novel and arcane scientific field, the central concepts of which are still only fully understood by specialists. It was one which emerged from mostly from his own high-level theoretical reasoning and debating the earlier work of the similarly obscure Kurt Gödel upon whether mathematical processes could truly solve any definable problem. 1 His life did not contain that many spectacular events, rather slow, grand, specific achievements that often seemed purely academic at the time. Many of these were not even publically known until after his death, due …show more content…
Previous studies have explored Turing as either a historical figure or as part of a wider scientific or military paradigm, but very little comment has been made upon why and how he has been selected as a popular hero. If comment has been made upon Turing's resurgence it has tended to be along the lines of assigning Turing's rise to a vague notion of progress, without much analysis as to what has allowed and governed it. More generalised studies of scientific and engineering heroism and its mechanics have been created before for select time periods by historians with an interest in meta-analysis, such as Christine MacLeod and Richard Yeo. 3 4 But nothing remotely similar has been attempted for Turing's time period. The mechanics and culture of defined heroism in the history computer science are desperately underexplored, in part due to the fledgling nature of the discipline compared to maths of …show more content…
Turing has been promoted primarily because of popular factors. These factors can determine who within the history of computer science transcends isolated example of academic analysis to become a popular hero known throughout a wider culture or sub-culture. There are a definable set of common factors conductive to promotion at present for scientific biography, and ones particular to computer science as well. In this context, “present” is taken to mean from 1989 to the present day, as opposed to the more loaded concept of modernity. These factors are held to be evident in the sources and rhetoric which have surrounded Turing, indicating what has made his biographical narrative more conductive than usual to memorialisation. To give an example, a factor helpful to promoting Turing would be the late twentieth century growth in general enthusiasm for promoting and studying the history of cultural and sexual minorities. My hypothesis is also that the details of these factors can govern promotion and depiction in certain ways. Particular nuances are evident as to what the public generally view as unambiguously heroic and thus admirable. For example, Andrew Hodges has already discussed how popular sources tend to portray Turing's sexuality as a passive trait, as opposed to a radical act. It can be theorised that narrative is sometimes altered from a exact retelling because of these difficulties in fitting it to a preconceived idea
Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld are the authors of the article “The Influencing Machines”. This article is about technology and is written through a comic-style form. Gladstone’s main idea on this article is that we should not fear technology. Gladstone’s and Neufeld’s comic-style article about technology is the best way to convey her argument because it gives visuals to express her argument, has a different form of arrangement of her details and thesis, and she gives examples of modern technology that should not scare us.
Computers in general give people the ability to complete tasks that would have taken days or weeks to complete with the clicks of a few buttons. As technologies continue to grow the amount of adjustments that will be needed to make will be astronomical. However, society is aiming to help people gain the skills needed to push mankind further. In Davidson’s essay, she discusses how computers and technology can be put to many applicable situations. While working with her students, the “Duke students came up with dozens of stunning new ways to learn [and] almost instantly students figured out that they could record lectures on their iPods and listen to them for leisure” (Davidson 52). This advancement took a few weeks at one college campus in the United States when the technology was still being developed. Now, students have adapted to begin working across the globe to further society with new ideas for applying these technologies. These students now work diligently to make technology as effortless as possible so that their programs will be what will be used in the future. Gilbert discusses how when people are judged by a panel of others they tend to feel worse about themselves but, when dealing with computers people are only judged by one computer which tells them
At what point will society place a dependence upon technological advancements rather than the curiosity and interactions of mankind? With the constant acceleration of improvements within technology and any piece of information readily available many authors, artists, and individuals question the natural world as each generation more elaborately explores the innovative approaches towards science and technology. E.M. Forster’s short story, “The Machine Stops,” is based upon a fear of the technological revolution, and it introduces the audience to a utopian society facing multiple forms of isolation as a result of his society reaching complete dependence upon the technology of the Machine. The society’s reliance upon the Machine creates a divide between those who display an adoration and worship towards the Machine versus citizens who prevail and fight for their individual freedom. E.M. Forster illustrates the role he foresees technology to play in the end of human civilization through an exaggerated vision of the effects that technology leaves on our lives, which helps the audience to better understand our present day society properly.
Although the effect of Turing’s contribution cannot be quantifiable in the Battle of the Atlantic or even the war in general, it is agreeable that with Ultra, the Allies had an upper hand in winning the war. The Allies essentially knew what the Germans were thinking, their ways, actions, and habits. This provided tremendous amounts of information for the Allies, which then benefited their strategies of approaching the
In history, numerous innocent people died due to atrocities. World War II is an historical event that can be considered as one of the most awful, deplorable, and destructive. Soldiers, mothers, fathers, adults, and children died. World War II resulted in the deaths of approximately 60 million people (Dan). Many nations, and groups mobilized together in order to fight back against the Nazis, including the scientific community. When United Kingdom declared war on Germany, Alan Turing and his team worked together to break the code of the Enigma machine and thus have access to the German military communication (Lendl). This essay is about Alan Turing’s accomplishments. In order to clearly explain his accomplishments, in this essay I will focus
In a world that is currently dominated by computers, it’s hard to imagine what it was like before they were invented. Though computers only began having a major influence in the last 60 years, the idea for them was first conceived almost 200 years ago. This technology would not have been possible without the work of Ada Lovelace, who is considered one of the pioneers in the field of computer programming. She had a vision of the possible benefits and capabilities of a computing machine. Even though she would never see her vision become a reality, her legacy and work had a lasting impact on the future of technology. However, during her lifetime she experienced multiple setbacks in pursuing her education
Today, the Turing Bombe is not used by the military, yet the machine inspires and reminds of the importance of sciences as World War II was won with the help of the scientific community. Now, the machines are exposed in the British Museum and are part of history. Soldiers and scientific community fought against the Nazis. After World War II, Alan Turing continued to devote himself for his passion of sciences, cryptanalysis, and computers. For instance, Turing is known as the father-creator of computers as in 1941, he designed the Colossus computer (Notes). In addition, he is recognized as an important figure in the scientific community and contributed largely to everyone’s lives, as computers are indispensable in today’s generation.
Alan Turing was a world famous mathematician and educator who is known for helping crack the “Enigma Code” and his work with computers and artificial intelligence. Alan Turing was born on the 23rd of June, 1912, in Maida Vale, London, England. Starting at a very young age, Alan Turing showed huge signs of intelligence. Although many of his teachers recognized his intellect, it didn’t mean that they necessarily respected the young man.
hidden humans. In any given session, there would be six imitation games running in parallel, and one given interrogator would meet all five answering machines and five hidden humans. The authors claim that the judges and hidden humans involved all were selected from a wide variety of backgrounds—both male and female, both adults and teenagers, some who already knew about the Turing test beforehand and others who did not. In this paper, the authors examined the data they had acquired in the tests to study what constitutes good machine performance in Turing’s imitation game.
Since the time the computer was created, there have been wild fantasy stories about computers taking over the world. During the 1950’s, when “The Machine that Won the War” was written, the first programmable computers were just being made. These computers were a glimpse of how the world was about to change. Isaac Asimov takes advantage of the new fascination of America in his writings. “The Machine that Won the War” is a science fiction story that shows that technology no matter how advanced will always still rely on humans and how humans will never grow to fully trust technology.
It is worth noting that Turing and his concepts first surprisingly cropped up in a mainstream piece of genre defining speculative science fiction relying on real research for ideas six years prior. As Andrew Hodges notes, Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick drew upon the concepts in On Computable Numbers and the idea of playing an “Imitation Game” with a virtual intelligence. They created a sinister exploration of the potential for an AI to deceive and kill in the film (later book) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). 9 10
Alan Mathison Turing was born in Paddington, London on June 23, 1912. At a young age he displayed many signs of high intelligence. When his parents and teachers saw this, they sent him to the very prestigious Sherborne School at only thirteen years old. There, he studied math and science which sparked his interest for computers and coding. After finishing his studies at Sherborne, he enrolled at King’s College, or what is now known as the University of Cambridge. As he attended school there from 1931 to 1934, he developed a certain respect for physics and, more specifically, quantum-mechanics in which he proved the central limit theorem. His accomplishment was so massive that he graduated as a fellow at the school. Alan Turing, using his extensive
Turing’s story of code breaking and his much less known but equally fundamental article “The
The author starts with introduction saying a little bit about herself and how she met first time the issue how computer is taking part of our daily live ,, My first encounters with how computers change the way we think came soon after I joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the late 1970s”, p.37. From this citation we can deduct
“We are not interested in the fact that the brain has the consistency of cold porridge.” “We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.”- Alan Turing, one of the few people to have been granted a royal pardon. Alan Turing was a visionary and a pioneer. He introduced many new ideas, some about computers and some about sexual orientation. He strongly influenced the outcome of the war, but was still treated horribly at his end of his life. While he was treated better posthumously, it was a shame his life had to cease before his time was over. Alan Turing left a legacy that strongly influenced our lives today. He was a great man that led a plentiful life that made a big impact in many different ways. .