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A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

blog.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

#71

Post by needmorecoffee »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #65
baddox wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your criticism is very accurate here. Wolfram Language code doesn't show up until the second half of the (very long) article, in the sections where he is explaining how to represent the mathematical concepts in the Wolfram Language. In fact, in several cases he mentions the traditional mathematical notation and follows it with the Wolfram Language notation. What's strange or arrogant or egotistical abou…

Every single piece Wolfram writes, without exception, is arrogant content marketing blogspam. Even his books. Sometimes very clever, sometimes interesting (though I'd find him 1,000x more interesting if say 1 article in 10 made no mention of how clever he and Mathematica are); always arrogant and self-promotional. This piece is no exception - because it's Turing I made exception to my usual personal hard-ban on readi…

It is known within the inner circles that he is quite a toxic character that has no taboos on privacy limits.

This piece is no exception at showing how much he wants to show off by revealing private facts about certain things.

Lawsuits brought against him in the past reveal one or two more things.

Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

#73

Post by baddox »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #65
baddox wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your criticism is very accurate here. Wolfram Language code doesn't show up until the second half of the (very long) article, in the sections where he is explaining how to represent the mathematical concepts in the Wolfram Language. In fact, in several cases he mentions the traditional mathematical notation and follows it with the Wolfram Language notation. What's strange or arrogant or egotistical abou…

Every single piece Wolfram writes, without exception, is arrogant content marketing blogspam. Even his books. Sometimes very clever, sometimes interesting (though I'd find him 1,000x more interesting if say 1 article in 10 made no mention of how clever he and Mathematica are); always arrogant and self-promotional. This piece is no exception - because it's Turing I made exception to my usual personal hard-ban on readi…

It’s definitely self-promotion, but I don’t see why this is a bad thing. He’s clearly spent a large portion of his life developing a programming and computing environment to handle mathematics (and other things). What is he supposed to do? Write a blog post about something he's interested in, without using the programming language he has intentionally developed to deal with the things he’s interested in?

Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

#74

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

He mentioned that Cambridge switched to four digit phone numbers in 1939. Where can one find out such things like that, where did they record and document it as a fact? I wonder if they still had manual operators or was that automatic switching?

the link: [1] the first automatic switch was introduced in 1922; so they had the fascinating problem of interoperation between manual switched regions and automatic ones. So that Oxford might have had it either way.

[1] https://www.btplc.com/Thegroup/BTsHistory/1912to1968/1922.ht...

Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

#75

Post by lioeters »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #65
baddox wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your criticism is very accurate here. Wolfram Language code doesn't show up until the second half of the (very long) article, in the sections where he is explaining how to represent the mathematical concepts in the Wolfram Language. In fact, in several cases he mentions the traditional mathematical notation and follows it with the Wolfram Language notation. What's strange or arrogant or egotistical abou…

Every single piece Wolfram writes, without exception, is arrogant content marketing blogspam. Even his books. Sometimes very clever, sometimes interesting (though I'd find him 1,000x more interesting if say 1 article in 10 made no mention of how clever he and Mathematica are); always arrogant and self-promotional. This piece is no exception - because it's Turing I made exception to my usual personal hard-ban on readi…

That last sentence made me laugh, and it does ring true. Here's how I imagine he would answer that question:

https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2015/12/what-is-spacetime-re...

> So, OK, if I mounted a project to try to find the fundamental theory of physics, what would I actually do? It’s a complex project, that’ll need not just me, but a diverse team of talented other people too.

It's illuminating that, in order to explore the nature of space and time, he mentions Euclid, Einstein, but most of all himself and his work. The self-absorption encompasses all of existence.

That said, dismissing all of his writing as "arrogant content marketing blogspam" feels uncharitable and too reductive - I don't disagree, but still consider it arrogant self-promotion of the highest order, by one of the most productive and insightful thinkers of our time.

Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

#76

Post by dang »

creepypeepy wrote: post #67

Some folks here enjoy reading it but Wolfman is often out of line when putting his comments and twists in. It also displays a creepy nature of wolfman to want to know very personal things. Example, recording private phone calls and releasing them to the public or releasing those to lawyers when he feels they might serve his purpose. Creepy and borderline dangerous. But for the average Joe all this seems to be enjoyab…

Please stop.

Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

#77

Post by dang »

galonk wrote: post #35

I know SW is famous for his arrogance/egotism, but it still kills me how he always discusses everything in terms of Mathematica's programming language, instead of mathematical notation or pseudo-code. It's like giving a linguistics lecture using the made-up language you invented with your twin.

Please let's not fall yet again into the black hole of Wolfram Derangement Syndrome. From that there is no exit.

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=wolfram%20derangement%20syndro...

Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

#78

Post by FullyFunctional »

baddox wrote: post #45
galonk wrote: post #35

I know SW is famous for his arrogance/egotism, but it still kills me how he always discusses everything in terms of Mathematica's programming language, instead of mathematical notation or pseudo-code. It's like giving a linguistics lecture using the made-up language you invented with your twin.

I don't think your criticism is very accurate here. Wolfram Language code doesn't show up until the second half of the (very long) article, in the sections where he is explaining how to represent the mathematical concepts in the Wolfram Language. In fact, in several cases he mentions the traditional mathematical notation and follows it with the Wolfram Language notation. What's strange or arrogant or egotistical abou…

I found his relentless self-promotion really distracting and annoying. And presenting lambda calculus in terms of his own language only makes it more confusing.

However, I am impressed with the tenacity it took to trace the paper to its origin and there's a lot of interesting story in the process.

Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

#80

Post by jdietrich »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #66
neves wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can see an original Enigma machine at Churchill's war room, with a nice quiz about the facts that the allies pretended they didn't know about. The Science Museum also has nice displays about Alan Turing work. Some time ago they hosted the exposition Code Breaker: https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/what-was-on/codebreaker

The Science museum is a sad picture of extreme neglect and bad ideas these days. Just about every museum I've been to in the UK does it better, whether regional ones or national, even the smaller ones. Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, Bletcheley, Royal Arms Leeds, etc. Bletcheley has a far, far better discussion about Turing and his influence, and far better displays of the Code Breaking work, along with th…

I agree that many parts of the Science Museum now look neglected and shabby, but the museum does have some truly exceptional exhibits - an original prototype Analytical Engine, a working replica Difference Engine, an Apple I, a Cray 1a, a Daniels Space Traveler and much more besides.

I have to admit a deep sadness at the recent closure of the old Wellcome collection on the fourth and fifth floor; this gallery had been left largely unchanged in several decades, but it had a powerfully evocative atmosphere. It was nearly always empty (hence the understandable decision to close it) and was poorly signposted from the rest of the museum, so it felt almost like urban exploration, creeping through a once-cherished but now abandoned site. By the passage of time, it had become a sort of meta-museum, presenting a historical perspective on the history of medicine. The galleries have been preserved for posterity by Google, but pictures can't really capture the feeling of stepping into a museum that is itself a museum exhibit.

https://artsandculture.google.com/streetview/science-museum-...

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