[HN Gopher] The Spirit of Alan Turing (2012)
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The Spirit of Alan Turing (2012)
Author : Caiero
Score : 23 points
Date : 2023-07-06 18:28 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk)
| hi41 wrote:
| 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.
| goodbyesf wrote:
| > 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.
| gybon wrote:
| 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.
| darkclouds wrote:
| Yeah lets not forget the Poles cracked one version of the
| enigma machines first.
|
| https://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
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| He is one of my heroes. It was amazing to visit Bletchely Park
| and stand in the huts where he did some of his work.
|
| I almost named my son after him, but my wife vetoed that!
| zabzonk wrote:
| were you going to call him "alan" or "turing"?
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Alan. She didn't like it.
| zabzonk wrote:
| 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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