It took Alan Turing only a couple of years to solve the Entscheidungsproblem (Decision Problem) in a branch of mathematics later to become part of theoretical computer science (along with developing the most convincing mathematical model of computability known today as the Turing machine).
It took Great Britain 67 long shameful years before the Bank of England could make this decision ...
I'll have an extra bourbon tonight.
9 comments:
Well said Boom.
With great respect to another genius emerging from the shadows of idiocy!
I hope you enjoyed that extra bourbon :)
Rex
Well, Sir Isaac Newton didn’t appear on a bank note until 1978, over 250 years after his death, and there are plenty of notable Britains who have yet to appear on bank notes. I’m not sure any proper conclusions can be drawn from such matters.
In any event, it was only relatively recently that Turing’s work came to general public awareness, in the light of the rise in computing, Andrew Hodges’ biography, the lifting of secrecy over Bletchley Park’s wartime activities, and most notably, the very entertaining if historically inaccurate movie, “The Imitation Game”. Turing and his work has emerged from the shadows, but of highly technical mathematics that for many years interested few people and the 50 year secrecy over Bletchley Park’s code-breaking...not idiocy.
Colin,
Newton was much honored by the Crown in his lifetime, while Turing was tried and convicted of "gross indecency" and given a truly barbaric choice of a sentence. The banknote decision is not so much an honor for Turing as the much delayed admission (however indirect) of shame and guilt by a nation that turned out not to have been as civilized as it has long thought itself to be. The nation in which Elton John (a flaming queen if there ever was one) was awarded CBE in 1995, but Turing did not get an official pardon until 2013.
In any case, the Turing Award - the 'Nobel Prize' of computer science - has been awarded for more than half a century now. And this honor of Turning has nothing to do with his (long classified) wartime work in cryptography.
I agree, Turing’s treatment in his final years was barbaric, and his suicide tragic. That has no connection with his achievements in computer science or cryptography, however. The banknote appears to be honouring the latter, and those achievements were never suppressed due to Turing’s homosexuality. Along with everyone else at Bletchley Park, the classified nature of their work meant it did not enter the public domain until many years later, by which point the public’s attitudes to such matters had changed radically, in Britain and elsewhere. The uncivilised treatment of homosexuals at the time of Turing’s death was world-wide, and still exists in some places. Every nation has a history of uncivilised conduct, whether it be to gays, persons of colour, religious or ethnic groups, intellectuals, etc. If one were so minded, it could be an endless source of resentment, an emotion that can never be fully sated and is so easily achieved.
I’m afraid i can’t see the banknote as an admission of anything, however indirectly, though we should be gratified that sexual orientation no longer plays a part in recognising someone’s achievements, at least as far as this kind of commemoration is concerned. And I don’t think the comparison with Elton John tells us a great deal either - maybe that celebrity pop stars are considered more important than mathematicians?
To which honor are you referring? If you mean the banknote, since it has an image of the Bletchley Park huts on it, it clearly does have something to do with Turing’s work in cryptography. If you mean the Turing Award, that does relate to computer science, but I’m not sure what your point is. There are plenty of significant computer scientists who don’t appear on bank notes throughout the world, gay or straight.
Actually, on peering at the banknote more closely, I think it’s a circuit board, not huts. I’m not sure that makes a big difference, however. After all, “The Imitation Game”, which brought Turing’s profile to the fore and may have prompted this new note, celebrated his achievements as both a cryptographer and someone to whom we’re all indebted for those devices without which our lives would be rendered meaningless.
Anyway, I can’t remember the last time I had a £50.00 banknote in my wallet!
Actually, the most prominent image on the banknote (boldface white symbols) is a specification of a Turing Machine's "machine table" - i.e.,
initial internal state,
symbol on the tape square under the read/scan head,
operation to be performed
next internal state after operation is completed
And below there is an illustration of Turing's concept of a machine tape (divided into squares each containing either 1, 0, or being left blank)
This, of course, is Turing's most important achievement. If he had done nothing else (including no cryptographic work), his 1936 proof of the existence of a "Universal Turing Machine" (i.e., programmable computer) would already assure his immortality. But of course the pathetically superficial film you referred to would never dare to make THAT the "main course" of Turing's biography.
You may be right about his most important single achievement, but I’m not sure how you compare that to the lives saved by Turing and the teams with whom he worked during WWII. They’re very different achievements.
And clearly, one story is more suitable for a movie than the other. I’m not sure how you could make a compelling two-hour drama out of the proof of a Universal Turing Machine. Mind you, the BBC had a stab at the more technical side in the 1996 drama “Breaking the Code”, though such things are never going to be readily intelligible for a lay audience:
https://youtu.be/vyDe8IWAxaY
My problem with the recent film is that significant parts of it were inaccurate. Given the constraints, much had to be simplified and superficial, but it was irksome, for example, that Turing and his team were portrayed as determining what decoded messages to act on, based on some algorithm for weighing lives saved against the risk of detection. My understanding is that the decisions were made by others elsewhere, as you would expect, and such judgments cannot be reduced to a formula.
From recollection, Hodges’ biography covers all of Turing’s work.
@Colin Green: A bit late to chip in, but I totally agree with @Boom's attitude - Britain was relentless and barbaric re: homosexuality towards great geniuses regardless of their achievements. BTW, if you know the horrible choices they gave him when indicted (chemical castration, or jail), and that he chose the former, you may see that the banknote portrait is of his later years, his face all puffed up as well as his frame due to the side-effects of the castration-drugs they made him take. I'm just not suprised one day he took that apple laced with potassium cyanide. Of course if you don't know all this, and haven't seen earlier photos or portraits of him, you won't be aware of it at all. You shall even think what good chaps honouring this man on a banknote. Sigh.
I agreed his treatment was barbaric. My point was that such views were widespread at the time, not just in Britain, and every nation has a history of inhuman treatment, for example: the Tuskegee syphilis experiments in the United States. We now live in a rather different world populated by people who largely think differently. Are the sins of our ancestors to be visited on current generations, and how far back do you want to go – or is it just selected people and countries that provide convenient opportunities for feeling smug?
And yes, I was aware of the physical affects the treatment had on him. It’s common knowledge.
I’m unsure what you’re saying in your conclusion. Are you suggesting that Turing and his achievements should not be honoured, and if so, why?
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