Alan M. Turing (1912-1954)

Alan M. Turing (1912-1954) was a person.

• Context:
  • They can be a Theoretical Computer Scientist, Mathematician, Logician, Cryptanalyst, ...
  • They can have felt Homosexual Attraction.
  • They can have invented a Turing Test.
  • They can have invented a Turing Machine.
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Alan M. Turing, 1931.
  • Alan M. Turing, 1936.
  • Alan M. Turing, 1939.
  • Alan M. Turing, 1941.
  • Alan M. Turing, 1952, when he proposes a "universal machine".
  • Alan M. Turing, 1954.
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Alonzo Church (1903-1995).
  • Claude E. Shannon (1916-2001).
  • John von Neumann (1903-1957).
• See: Computer Scientist, Turing Complete, Church-Turing Thesis, Entscheidungsproblem.

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References

• https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VWCHlwkAAAAJ

2023

• HTTP://chat.openai.com
  • Q: What are some of the key dates in Alan Turing's life and why?
  • A: Alan Turing was a British mathematician, computer scientist, and logician who made significant contributions to the field of computer science and artificial intelligence. He was born on June 23, 1912 and died on June 7, 1954.

    Some key dates in Turing's life include:

    • September 26, 1931: Turing enrolls at King's College, Cambridge, where he studies mathematics and becomes interested in the foundations of computer science.
    • September 1939: Turing begins working at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, where he leads a team of codebreakers working to decipher German military communications during World War II.
    • May 1941: Turing and his team at Bletchley Park successfully decrypt the first messages sent using the German Enigma machine, a major breakthrough that greatly aided the Allied war effort.
    • 1952: Turing proposes the concept of the "universal machine," a theoretical device that could compute any computable function, now known as the Turing machine. This work is considered a key foundation of computer science.
    • June 7, 1954: Turing dies at the age of 41 in an apparent suicide. He had been convicted of homosexuality, which was a crime in the UK at the time, and had been subjected to chemical castration as punishment.

2023

• HTTP://chat.openai.com
  • Alan Turing is best known for his paper “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem," which was published in 1937. This paper introduced the concept of the Turing machine, a theoretical device that could compute any computable function, and is considered a key foundation of computer science.

    Other notable publications by Turing include:

    • “Computing Machinery and Intelligence," published in 1950, in which he introduced the "Imitation Game," now known as the "Turing Test," as a way to determine whether a machine is capable of intelligent behavior.
    • “The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis," published in 1952, in which he proposed a mathematical model for the way in which patterns form in developing organisms.
    • “Digital Computers Applied to Games," published in 1952, in which he discussed the use of computers in game playing, and demonstrated that a computer could be programmed to play chess.
  • Turing also made significant contributions to the development of the first practical stored-program computer, the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), and he played a key role in the development of the first computers at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the UK.

2021

• (Wikipedia, 2021) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing Retrieved:2021-12-10.
  • Alan Mathison Turing (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. Born in Maida Vale, London, Turing was raised in southern England. He graduated at King's College, Cambridge, with a degree in mathematics. Whilst he was a fellow at Cambridge, he published a proof demonstrating that some purely mathematical yes–no questions can never be answered by computation and defined a Turing machine, and went on to prove the halting problem for Turing machines is undecidable. In 1938, he obtained his PhD from the Department of Mathematics at Princeton University. During the Second World War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre that produced Ultra intelligence. For a time he led Hut 8, the section that was responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. Here, he devised a number of techniques for speeding the breaking of German ciphers, including improvements to the pre-war Polish bombe method, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine. Turing played a crucial role in cracking intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Axis powers in many crucial engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic. After the war, Turing worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he designed the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE), one of the first designs for a stored-program computer. In 1948, Turing joined Max Newman's Computing Machine Laboratory, at the Victoria University of Manchester, where he helped develop the Manchester computers and became interested in mathematical biology. He wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesisand predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, first observed in the 1960s. Despite these accomplishments, he was never fully recognised in his home country during his lifetime because much of his work was covered by the Official Secrets Act. Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts. He accepted chemical castration treatment, with DES, as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death as a suicide, but it has been noted that the known evidence is also consistent with accidental poisoning. In 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for "the appalling way he was treated". Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a posthumous pardon in 2013. The “Alan Turing law” is now an informal term for a 2017 law in the United Kingdom that retroactively pardoned men cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts. Turing has an extensive legacy with statues of him and many things named after him, including an annual award for computer science innovations. He appears on the current Bank of England £50 note, which was released to coincide with his birthday. A 2019 BBC series, as voted by the audience, named him the greatest person of the 20th century.

1953

• (Turing, 1953) ⇒ Alan M. Turing. (1953). “Digital Computers Applied to Games.” In: Bowden's Faster than Thought (1953).

1952

• (Turing, 1952) ⇒ Alan M. Turing. (1952). “[The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis].” In: Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, 52(1).

1950

• (Turing, 1950) ⇒ Alan M. Turing. (1950). “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Mind, 59.

1936

• (Turing, 1936) ⇒ Alan M. Turing. (1936). “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.” In: Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, 2(42). doi:10.1112/plms/s2-42.1.230.

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