The most significant Genius of History

[Sappho]

He was odd through and through. Had a stutter. Was a loner. Renowned for his sense of humour. Was charged under the same laws as Oscar Wilde had some hundred years prior. Suffered chemical castration. Committed suicide at 42 through the use of a poisoned apple, aka Sleeping Beauty style (his fav children's story), but is not remembered for any of this.

He was the most significant Genius to have ever graced life, influencing more people than has any other person or nation, then or now. An extraordinary mind he was, and that I can tell you this, on this forum, is because of him.

The odds of breaking the German's U-boat Enigma Cipher, were worked out to be something like 150 million, million, million to one. The Enigma Cipher was the msg sent to a receiver with an Enigma Machine, advising them of how to set that machine in order to receive the intelligence to follow which would otherwise read as gibberish. The British had an Enigma Machine, but they didn't have the code that would allow them to use it. This MAN amongst men, broke that code. Eisenhower latter of this man, that he shortened WWII by two years at least. Others said that he had reduced the Allied casualties and deaths by more than half. This man then was a cryptologist... A Code Breaker par excellence. His Eureka moment? That from inconsistency, consistency is found.

To Biology he originated the science of morphogenesis which explained how patterns formed in Nature.

Prior to all of this, the man of men was puzzled by Gödel’s incompleteness theorems which claimed that all logical systems must be incomplete. After much introspection and dialogue with fellow logician Wittgenstein, he concluded that it is not the logical systems that are incomplete, but rather the questions being asked of the logic that are incomplete. He used an original and complex philosophical thought experiment to prove his point... and that thought experiment, from the 1930s now represents the foundation theories necessary for computer science.

In awe of this man was the academic community... some thought to creating this philosophical machine and did. Turing then created programming necessary to run these machines solving the issue of... the number of characters required per bit with the use of Leibniz's binary numbers.

Finally, he is the originator of studies Artificial Intelligence and argued that an infallible machine could never be intelligent which provided the natural learning model of trial and error which AI machines now use to navigate reality.

June 23 this year is the Centenary of this great, great man and this thread is aimed at paying homage to him.

His name? Alan Turing of course!

[Thanatos]

Eisenhower latter of this man, that he shortened WWII by two years at least. Others said that he had reduced the Allied casualties and deaths by more than half.

He's not dead. He just froze solid for a while. This man is alive, still fighting evil, and the top in a relationship with Tony Stark.

Seriously, I knew of Alan Turing from running across some of his work (Turing-complete programming languages, anyone?) but I had no idea what his personal life was like or how he'd been treated after the war. This is really rather shameful, and serves as a reminder of why we should never give the homophobes and religious nutters more power.

[Zeebadee]

Evidently, there is some doubt about his suicide:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092

[Jack]

The first classes I ever took in computer science were at the National Cryptologic School while stationed at Ft. Meade in the Army. The instructors were quite frank and honest about Turing's homosexuality and his odd behaviors and mannerisms. In fact they suggested that men of genius are often afflicted with characteristics unappreciated by the societies in which they live. It's all a part of their brains operating on a level beyond the average human.

Turing was a man of vision and unique intellect. It's truly sad that he wound up being treated by an "enlightened" government the way he was. To this day England refuses to acknowledge their error or apologize for the inhumane treatment it subjected Turing to.

[Sappho]

To this day England refuses to acknowledge their error or apologize for the inhumane treatment it subjected Turing to.

Who are they going to apologize to Jack? There are no known surviving relatives to which that apology could be directed.

Mr Gordon Brown in the Telegraph 11/9/2009

This has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude that characterise the British experience. Earlier this year, I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against fascism and declared the outbreak of the Second World War.

So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain's fight against the darkness of dictatorship: that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of the Second World War could have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely.

In 1952, he was convicted of "gross indecency" – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time, and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair, and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was convicted, under homophobic laws, were treated terribly. Over the years, millions more lived in fear in conviction. I am proud that those days are gone and that in the past 12 years this Government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan's status as one of Britain's most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality, and long overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind's darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices – that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years.

It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe's history and not Europe's present. So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work, I am very proud to say: we're sorry. You deserved so much better.

[Chris the Chees]

Renowned for his sense of humour.

Renouned by whom? I have read every book on Bletchley Park that has ever been published, that I am aware of, I've never seen anybody suggest that he was a great wit.

]QUOTE=Sappho] The Enigma Cipher was the msg sent to a receiver with an Enigma Machine, advising them of how to set that machine in order to receive the intelligence to follow which would otherwise read as gibberish.[/QUOTE]

You are evidently confused. What you are describing is the 'key': the rotor and plugboard settings being applied by that Service's Enigma machines that day. The Axis services did not send the day's key to operators 'advising them of how to set that machine' in order to recieve messages. If they did then that would inevitably have to be in plain text thus making the entire cipher system worthless. Or, if not in plain text, then under the previous day's key - which would be an inexcusable weakness. Rather, the instructions for daily key settings were published in codebooks that were distributed among the various units employing that particular Enigma system.

This MAN amongst men, broke that code.

Not really. He worked on German Naval Enigma systems, and designed what were called 'bombe' machines. But he did not single handedly break the German U-boat Engima (shark), let alone Enigma generally. The first breaks into Enigma systems weren't even British, they were Polish. And the first British breaks were made by Dillwyn Knox against Italian Enigma during the Spanish Civil War, and again during WW2.

Like I said, Turing's major contribution was specifically to the design of the Turing Bombe, named after a machine designed by Polish cryptanalysts called the Bomba, which was in turn made much more efficent following input by the Cambridge Mathematitian and cryptanalyst Gordon Welchman.

This isn't to play down Turing's contribution, which was, indeed, considerable. Turing's bombes rapidly increased the rate at which Enigma messages could be broken. His ability as a cryptanalyst was well recognised, as he was the head of German Naval cryptanalysis in Hut 8 at Bletchley Park - until he was moved sideways from management into a position purely revolving around research. But was he 'the man among men'? Not really, because that implies that everyone else working for the Govenment Code and Cypher School, all 10,000 of them (at the very least), were sitting around doing nothing.

[xx_mortekai_xx]

Who are they going to apologize to Jack? There are no known surviving relatives to which that apology could be directed.

I think its more about admitting they were wrong in their treatment of the man, not specifically apologizing to any one person or family specifically.