Alan Turing, Condemned Code Breaker and Computer Visionary • Hacker News Board

Re: Alan Turing, Condemned Code Breaker and Computer Visionary

#11

Post by jgrahamc » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #7

Turing was a minor figure in computing history until it became known that he was gay. Since then, he's hyped a lot more. Turing didn't design Colossus; Tommy Flowers did. Turing didn't design the first bombe, Marian Rejewski did. Turing figured out a way to make it 26x faster at the cost of 26x as many wires and contacts. Neither of those were general purpose computers; they were key-testers, like a Bitcoin miner. Th…

You made a similar comment two years ago and I replied then. Anyone who wants to read the rebuttals can do so here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14024880

Re: Alan Turing, Condemned Code Breaker and Computer Visionary

#12

Post by justin66 » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

jgrahamc wrote: post #11

Animats wrote: post #7

Turing was a minor figure in computing history until it became known that he was gay. Since then, he's hyped a lot more. Turing didn't design Colossus; Tommy Flowers did. Turing didn't design the first bombe, Marian Rejewski did. Turing figured out a way to make it 26x faster at the cost of 26x as many wires and contacts. Neither of those were general purpose computers; they were key-testers, like a Bitcoin miner. Th…

You made a similar comment two years ago and I replied then. Anyone who wants to read the rebuttals can do so here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14024880

This was well put:

> The ACM started giving the Turing Award in 1966.

Re: Alan Turing, Condemned Code Breaker and Computer Visionary

#13

Post by shaunxcode » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:03 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #7

Turing was a minor figure in computing history until it became known that he was gay. Since then, he's hyped a lot more. Turing didn't design Colossus; Tommy Flowers did. Turing didn't design the first bombe, Marian Rejewski did. Turing figured out a way to make it 26x faster at the cost of 26x as many wires and contacts. Neither of those were general purpose computers; they were key-testers, like a Bitcoin miner. Th…

I think if you changed your first sentence to simply "Turing should be a minor figure in computing history compared to his contemporaries" it would still be controversial but your comment would not be so grey. As it currently stands it just comes off as homophobic. As an aside I spent a lot of time sitting next to his statue in manchester on my lunch breaks and this was a long time before he became so homoiconic.

Re: Alan Turing, Condemned Code Breaker and Computer Visionary

#14

Post by burntoutcase » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:08 PM UTC

Alan Turing, a hero murdered by his own country because he liked a good stiff one up the arse.

Re: Alan Turing, Condemned Code Breaker and Computer Visionary

#15

Post by NeedMoreTea » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #7

Turing was a minor figure in computing history until it became known that he was gay. Since then, he's hyped a lot more. Turing didn't design Colossus; Tommy Flowers did. Turing didn't design the first bombe, Marian Rejewski did. Turing figured out a way to make it 26x faster at the cost of 26x as many wires and contacts. Neither of those were general purpose computers; they were key-testers, like a Bitcoin miner. Th…

Much of Turing's work was classified as Official Secret until the mid 70s. Declassification allowed the the publication of The Ultra Secret that first revealed what went on at Bletchley. Two of Turing's papers on cryptanalysis were thought significant enough to remain classified by GCHQ for 70 years. Yet he was still fairly well known.

Obviously after the release of the wartime work his place in history grew.

It was only after that declassification of Bletchley that anyone heard of Tommy Flowers and his work at GPO research. Up til that point even his family didn't know his contribution. Flowers should be far better known than he is, but anyone encountering the Enigma codebreaking story in the last 40+ years should come across his story. I do think it criminal they got so little official recognition.

Re: Alan Turing, Condemned Code Breaker and Computer Visionary

#16

Post by microtherion » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:16 PM UTC

chubot wrote: post #8

Animats wrote: post #7

Turing was a minor figure in computing history until it became known that he was gay. Since then, he's hyped a lot more. Turing didn't design Colossus; Tommy Flowers did. Turing didn't design the first bombe, Marian Rejewski did. Turing figured out a way to make it 26x faster at the cost of 26x as many wires and contacts. Neither of those were general purpose computers; they were key-testers, like a Bitcoin miner. Th…

Are there any good books about Zuse? He's mentioned in passing in almost every computer history book, like the "The Dream Machine". Mostly they just say that his work was destroyed, and not much more, which is a shame! And then they devote hundreds of pages to his contemporaries. I searched Amazon and apparently has an autobiography, which doesn't appear to be widely read: https://www.amazon.com/Computer-My-Life-Konr…

There is a rather nice archive of his papers here: http://zuse.zib.de

In the 1990s, I had to go through considerable lengths to obtain a physical copy of his book describing his "Plankalkül" programming language; nowadays it's conveniently available online.

Re: Alan Turing, Condemned Code Breaker and Computer Visionary

#17

Post by Taniwha » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

chubot wrote: post #8

Animats wrote: post #7

Turing was a minor figure in computing history until it became known that he was gay. Since then, he's hyped a lot more. Turing didn't design Colossus; Tommy Flowers did. Turing didn't design the first bombe, Marian Rejewski did. Turing figured out a way to make it 26x faster at the cost of 26x as many wires and contacts. Neither of those were general purpose computers; they were key-testers, like a Bitcoin miner. Th…

Are there any good books about Zuse? He's mentioned in passing in almost every computer history book, like the "The Dream Machine". Mostly they just say that his work was destroyed, and not much more, which is a shame! And then they devote hundreds of pages to his contemporaries. I searched Amazon and apparently has an autobiography, which doesn't appear to be widely read: https://www.amazon.com/Computer-My-Life-Konr…

If you are visiting Berlin you'll likely enjoy a visit to the Technology Museum (https://sdtb.de/) - there's a a great Zuse exhibit (and the trains!)

Re: Alan Turing, Condemned Code Breaker and Computer Visionary

#18

Post by WilliamEdward » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:31 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #7

Turing was a minor figure in computing history until it became known that he was gay. Since then, he's hyped a lot more. Turing didn't design Colossus; Tommy Flowers did. Turing didn't design the first bombe, Marian Rejewski did. Turing figured out a way to make it 26x faster at the cost of 26x as many wires and contacts. Neither of those were general purpose computers; they were key-testers, like a Bitcoin miner. Th…

the Church-Turing thesis is the bedrock of computer science, without which it may not even be a science. It defines, scientifically and uniquely, what computing actually is, thus separating computer science from the other sciences and turning it into its own field. You can't possibly argue that this is a small contribution.

Re: Alan Turing, Condemned Code Breaker and Computer Visionary

#19

Post by Loq » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #7

Turing was a minor figure in computing history until it became known that he was gay. Since then, he's hyped a lot more. Turing didn't design Colossus; Tommy Flowers did. Turing didn't design the first bombe, Marian Rejewski did. Turing figured out a way to make it 26x faster at the cost of 26x as many wires and contacts. Neither of those were general purpose computers; they were key-testers, like a Bitcoin miner. Th…

While the likes of Zuse and Flowers deserve more recognition, here are some other of Turing's achievements.

- Introduced the concept of ordinal logic, an apporach to overcoming the limitations of Goedel's incompleteness theorems, a thriving field as of 2019. See [1].

- Gave the definite analysis of the notion of "mechanical computability", see [2].

- Essentially invented the field of AI, with key contributions such as Neural Networks [3] (but see [4, 5, 9]) and the Turing test [6].

- Work in chemistry / biology, see [7, 8].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_logic

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine

[3] https://www.info2007.net/docs/intelligent-machinery-alan-tur...

[4] http://compucology.net/unorganized

[5] http://compucology.net/criticism

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

[7] http://www.dna.caltech.edu/courses/cs191/paperscs191/turing....

[8] https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/alan-turings-contrib...

[9] http://www.alanturing.net/turing_archive/pages/Reference%20A...

Re: Alan Turing, Condemned Code Breaker and Computer Visionary

#20

Post by elliekelly » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 8:38 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #6

I really enjoy the “Overlooked” series of obits [0]. It’s interesting for some of them to go back and see who the NYT printed obits for on the day/week of the death. It’s not as if the sections are full of even more famous (if not accomplished) persons — on an average day, it seems that there were plenty of obits for people who were just relatively well-known in high society. Such that if the NYT had a better focus o…

> I think Turing is probably the most famous in his own time to have been in “Overlooked”.

Although many on HN have probably never heard of her, I would argue Fannie Farmer was just about as famous as a woman could be in her time. Not only was she the Martha Stewart media mogul of the early 1900's but she was one of the early pioneers of modern nutrition science. She was so well respected in the field that she was invited to teach a course at Harvard Medical School decades before women would even be permitted to enroll.

She's also the reason we all have measuring spoons and cups in our kitchens.