Alan Turing was one a billion. With his monumental work he saved so many lives. It’s a great tragedy he was persecuted for his sexual orientation. If the society were more understanding we would not lost this amazing human being, most of will never achieve even 1% of what he did. We are probably behind a century of progress because we lost him.
He was a brilliant man, but let's not deify him. The Bletchley Park wartime intelligence work was a team effort, including a significant amount of cryptanalysis by Polish allies.
However Govt's appear to not hold themselves accountable to the same standards of the legislation they invent, nor the Police nor the Crown Prosecution Service so besides not being had up before a court, they often at best just issue an apology for their Joint Enterprise actions, and there are a couple of sayings that go "talk is cheap" and "business as usual"!
> With his monumental work he saved so many lives.
No it didn't. The work at bletchley park was useless and had no material affect on the outcome of the war. One shouldn't get their history from movies. WW2 in europe wasn't a war of 'intelligence'. It was pure mindless slugfest between the germans and the soviets. It was the elites senselessly slamming millions of men against millions of men. The side with millions more men won.
> We are probably behind a century of progress because we lost him.
Had Turing never existed, nothing would have changed. Nothing in computing would have changed. Nothing in ww2 would have changed. It's amazing the lengths some go turn their personal heroes to gods.
1. The foundations of computing were already laid down by Post, Godel, Church, et al before Turing. Computers - from adders to 'software' driven computers - were being develop prior to or independent of Turing. Turing didn't invent the transistor.
2. The german codes were already broken by polish mathematicians, et al. And german codes played no role in ww2. The war was pretty straightforward.
Turing made notable contributions but lets not get too carried away. People act like Turing built the computer by himself and won ww2 by himself. He did neither.
when my dad was an undergraduate at manchester in the late 40s/early 50s he met Turing and discussed logic with him - i think Turing was being kind. still, i have shook the hand, that shook the hand...
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 33.1 ms ] threadhttps://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/20/the-pole-who...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine
However Govt's appear to not hold themselves accountable to the same standards of the legislation they invent, nor the Police nor the Crown Prosecution Service so besides not being had up before a court, they often at best just issue an apology for their Joint Enterprise actions, and there are a couple of sayings that go "talk is cheap" and "business as usual"!
The UK Law of Joint Enterprise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjBwCmwpvMI
No it didn't. The work at bletchley park was useless and had no material affect on the outcome of the war. One shouldn't get their history from movies. WW2 in europe wasn't a war of 'intelligence'. It was pure mindless slugfest between the germans and the soviets. It was the elites senselessly slamming millions of men against millions of men. The side with millions more men won.
> We are probably behind a century of progress because we lost him.
Had Turing never existed, nothing would have changed. Nothing in computing would have changed. Nothing in ww2 would have changed. It's amazing the lengths some go turn their personal heroes to gods.
1. The foundations of computing were already laid down by Post, Godel, Church, et al before Turing. Computers - from adders to 'software' driven computers - were being develop prior to or independent of Turing. Turing didn't invent the transistor.
2. The german codes were already broken by polish mathematicians, et al. And german codes played no role in ww2. The war was pretty straightforward.
Turing made notable contributions but lets not get too carried away. People act like Turing built the computer by himself and won ww2 by himself. He did neither.
I almost named my son after him, but my wife vetoed that!