1. Alan Turing
Prof. Jonathan P. Bowen
Emeritus Professor of Computing
London South Bank University (LSBU)
Currently Visiting Scholar at the
Institute for Advanced Studies (IIAS)
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Chairman, Museophile Limited
www.jpbowen.com
Virtuoso Visionary
2. Introduction
⢠Subjects: Mathematics, engineering, art,
computer science, software engineering,
museum informatics, history of computing
⢠Collaboration: Archivists, historians, library scientists,
mathematicians, museologists, philosophers, sociologists
⢠Academia: Imperial College (London), Oxford, Reading,
Birmingham City, London South Bank University
⢠Visitor: UNU-IIST (Macau), Kingâs College London, Brunel,
Westminster, Waikato (New Zealand), Pratt Institute (New
York, USA), Institute for Advanced Studies (Jerusalem)
⢠Industry: Marconi, Logica, Silicon Graphics, Altran Praxis
⢠EVA London Conference on
Electronic Visualisation & the Arts
(co-chair) www.eva-london.org
3. Overview
⢠Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS
(23 June 1912 â 7 June 1954)
⢠Mathematician, philosopher, codebreaker
⢠âFounder/father of computer scienceâ
⢠Increasingly in the public consciousness
⢠Centenary meetings at Bletchley Park,
Cambridge, Manchester, Oxford,
etc., in 2012
⢠Mathematics can be visualised
⢠Digital archives of Turing material
4. Contributions to knowledge
⢠The Universal Machine (1936)
⢠Code-breaking (WW II)
⢠Computers and computing (1946)
⢠Artificial Intelligence (1950)
⢠Morphogenesis (1952)
6. The Scientists:
An epic of discovery
⢠Andrew Robinson (ed.),
Thames & Hudson, 2012
⢠43 scientists through history
⢠Includes Alan Turing
⢠And Einstein of course!
⢠How do they compare?
7. Einstein (a diversion!)
Institute for Advanced Studies,
Hebrew University
Einstein Archive
Albert Einstein Square
Garden of the Israel Academy of
Sciences and Humanities
9. Einsteinâs Blackboard, Oxford
âIf we knew what it was we
were doing, it would not be
called research, would it?â
â Albert Einstein (1879â1955)
Bust in
Birmingham
Museum and
Art Gallery
Blackboard in the
Museum of the History
of Science, Oxford
(lecture in Oxford on
16 May 1931)
Turing is not known to
have visited Oxford!
10. Turingâs Worlds (23â24 June 2012)
Dept. of Continuing Education, Oxford University
Authors in The Turing Guide
11. ⢠Cake at Oxford centenary meeting.
Happy Birthday Alan Turing! (2012)
12. The Turing Guide
A collected set of 42 chapters on
Alan Turing. Co-editors:
⢠Jonathan Bowen (London South Bank University,
England) â computer scientist (at IIAS)
⢠Jack Copeland (University of Canterbury,
New Zealand) â philosopher (at IIAS)
⢠Mark Sprevak (University of Edinburgh, Scotland)
â philosopher
⢠Robin Wilson (Open University /
Oxford University, England) â mathematician
13. Table of Contents
⢠Foreword by Andrew Hodges
⢠Preface by the editors
⢠Eight parts
⢠Notes and references
⢠Notes on contributors
⢠Index
14. Table of Contents â parts
I. Biography
II. The Universal Machine and Beyond
III. Codebreaker
IV. Computers after the War
V. Artificial Intelligence and the Mind
VI. Biological Growth
VII. Mathematics
VIII. Finale
15. 1. Life and work
⢠Jonathan P. Bowen, Jack Copeland,
Mark Sprevak, and Robin J. Wilson
⢠Biography
Born at Colonnade Hotel
Maida Vale, London, 1912
Died at home in Wilmslow,
Cheshire, 1954
16. Southampton to Sherborne
Arrival at new school: Bicycle ride during
the General Strike, 1926 (aged 14)
Stayed at the Crown Hotel, Blandford Forum
Inspired by school
friend Christopher
Morcom (died
February 1930)
when Turing was 17
Turing read and
understood
Einstein aged 16
18. Turing at Princeton Turingâs
record
of study
Studied the
Theory of
Relativity
under
Howard P.
Robertson
(1903â1961)
Robertson met
Einstein, Hilbert,
etc., in GĂśttingen,
Germany
19. 2. The man with the terrible trousers
⢠Sir John Dermot Turing
â nephew of Alan Turing
⢠A person view
⢠Author of Prof: Alan Turing Decoded
(September 2015) At an exhibition on Alan Turing
at Bletchley Park, 2012
20. 5. A century of Turing
⢠Stephen Wolfram
⢠Wolfram Research
⢠Mathematica
â âbirthdayâ (23 June 1988)
⢠Based on a blog
⢠Personal view
Turing Machine
visualisation
Mathematica program:
ArrayPlot [Function
[u, MapAt [Red &,
u[[2]], u[[1, 2]]]] /
@TuringMachine
[2506,{1, {{}, 0}, 50]]
21. 6. Turingâs great invention:
The computing machine
⢠Jack Copeland â the âTuring machineâ
An implementation of a Turing machine
22. 9. At
Bletchley Park
⢠Jack Copeland
⢠Enigma, etc.
Cottages in the
stable yard where
Turing did early
work on Enigma
Hut 8
used
by
Turing
23. 10. The Enigma machine
⢠Joel Greenberg
⢠Guide at Bletchey Park
⢠Author of Gordon Welchman:
Bletchley Park's Architect of
Ultra Intelligence biography
(2014)
24. 12. Bombes
⢠Jack Copeland, with Jean Valentine and
Catherine Caughey
⢠Electromechanical deciphering device
⢠Design by Turing et al. (1939)
⢠Bombe reconstruction at Bletchley Park
Jean Valentine, Bombe operator, latterly a guide at Bletchley Park
25. Banburismus and Turingery
⢠Banburismus: a cryptographic method
developed by Turing for Enigma (Bombe
pre-processing)
⢠Turingery (aka Turing's Method and
Turingismus) for breaking the Lorenz
cipher
Cf.
BlackBerry
today
26. 20. Saving Bletchley Park
⢠Simon Greenish and Jonathan Bowen
⢠Former Director
⢠Recent history of Bletchley Park
⢠Now safe (National Lottery funding)
27. 21. Turing, Lovelace, and
Babbage: congruent worlds
⢠Doron Swade, formerly computing
curator at the Science Museum, London
⢠Comparing Turingâs achievement with
Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace
⢠Analytical Engine
28. Ada Lovelace (1815â1852)
⢠First âprogrammerâ â 200th anniversary of
Ada Lovelaceâs birth, 10 December 2015
⢠Died aged 36 (cf. Turing at 41)
⢠Symposium in Oxford, 10â11 December 2015
⢠Exhibitions at Weston Library, Oxford
& Science Museum, London
⢠Letters in Bodleian Library, Oxford
Digitisation project
in progress at the
Bodleian
29. The ACE computer
⢠Turing at National Physical Laboratory, 1945â47
⢠Automatic Computing Engine (ACE),
originally designed by Turing, 1946
⢠Smaller Pilot ACE finally implemented, 1950
⢠Now in the Science
Museum, London
30. 23. The Manchester Baby
⢠Jack Copeland
⢠Manchester Mark I
computer, June 1948
⢠Turing appointed Reader
â worked on software
Alan Turing on
the right standing
at the console of
the Manchester
Ferranti
computer.
31. 24. Computer music
⢠Jack Copeland and Jason Long
⢠Foreseen by Ada Lovelace
⢠First recorded computer music
(God Save the King, Baa Baa Black Sheep, &
In the Mood, 1951!)
⢠Ferranti Mark 1 computer at Manchester
Programmed by Christopher Strachey (1916â1975),
later first head of the Programming Research Group,
Oxford, and colleague of Turing
Alan Turing (right) at the
console of the Ferranti Mark 1
32. 31. Child machines
⢠Diane Proudfoot (at IIAS)
⢠The Turing Test
⢠Educable machines
⢠Social intelligence
âOn the Internet, nobody knows
youâre a dog.â â New Yorker
33. Thought
â... at the end of the [20th] century,
... one will be able to speak of
machines thinking without
expecting to be contradicted.â
â Alan Turing
Awarded Fellowship of the Royal Society
(FRS), 1951.
34. Morphogenesis
⢠The "beginning of the shapeâ â
biological process, patterns
⢠Turing not completely correct,
but close enough
⢠Cf. chaos theory
Turing, A.M. (1952). âThe Chemical
Basis of Morphogenesisâ. Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society B:
Biological Sciences, 237(641):37â64.
doi:10.1098/rstb.1952.0012
A diagram from
Turing's notes on
morphogenesis
35. 35. Turingâs theory of
morphogenisis
⢠Thomas E. Woolley, Ruth
Baker, and Philip Maini
Centre for Mathematical Biology
Mathematical Institute
University of Oxford
⢠Earlier title: âAll models are
wrong, but some are usefulâ
⢠Turing was not completely
correct, but close enough
36. 36. Radiolaria: Validating
the Turing theory
⢠Bernard Richards, University of Manchester
⢠Last masters student under Turing in 1953
⢠Protozoa with complex mineral skeletons
On Alan Turing: âThe
day he died felt like
driving through a
tunnel and the lights
being switched off.â
42. 41. Is the whole universe
computable?
⢠Jack Copeland, Oron Shagrir (at IIAS),
Mark Sprevak
Chapter still being written!
43. 42. Turingâs legacy
⢠Jonathan Bowen
⢠Scientific legacy
⢠Turing and modern society
⢠Turing papers â auction
⢠Government pardon
⢠Public consciousness
⢠Google donation to
Bletchly Park
44. Epitaph
âA sort of scientific Shelley.â
â Sir Geoffrey Jefferson FRS (1886â1961)
Professor of Neurosurgery at Manchester
Shelley Memorial,
University College,
Oxford
45. Epilogue
⢠ACM Turing Award, first
awarded 1966
⢠Increasing public consciousness
⢠Government apology/pardon
⢠Turing papers: auctions
⢠Google donation to
Bletchley Park
46. Bletchley Park â now
⢠Heritage site
⢠Bombe and Colossus reconstructions
⢠National Museum of Computing
⢠Now safe, although needs further funding
53. Pet Shop Boys â Proms
⢠Royal Albert Hall, London, 23 July 2014
⢠World premiere of âA Man from the Futureâ
⢠Tribute to Alan Turing
54. The Imitation Game
(2014 film)
Historical drama film on the life of Alan
Turing, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and
Keira Knightley (based on the biography Alan
Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges).
Filming at
Kingâs Cross
Station, London
October 2013
55. Stephen Fry
âTuring was a genius who helped
shorten the war though his extraordinary
solutions to the Enigma and Tunny code
machines that the Germans were using
... We owe him a huge debt.â
56. Alan Turing (1912â1954)
⢠âFather of computer scienceâ
⢠Universal Turing machine
⢠Cryptography (decryption at Bletchley Park)
⢠Artificial intelligence and morphogenesis
57. Alan Turing and Albert Einstein
⢠Southwest University, Chongqing, China
⢠Are Turing and Einstein on a par?
Arguably yes,
but Einstein has
a head start!
Chongqing means
âdouble celebrationâ
(aptly) in Chinese
Both generally
accepted as
geniuses
58. Einstein in Oxford â again!
Free talk at Christ Church,
3 December 2015
Einstein book published by
Princeton University Press
Honorary degree, 1930s
59. The Turing Guide
⢠Book due in 2016
⢠To be published by Oxford University Press
⢠Hard cover, paperback, and e-book
⢠Edited by Jack Copeland, Jonathan Bowen, Mark
Sprevak, and Robin Wilson
⢠42 chapters by contributors largely from Oxford,
Cambridge, Bletchley Park meetings
⢠Sabbatical at the Institute for Advanced Studies in
Jerusalem to complete the book!
⢠See also Gresham College, London, talk:
www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/alan-turing-the-founder-of-computer-science
61. Thank you
Alan Turing
founder/father of
computer science
Prof. Jonathan Bowen
FBCS, FRSA
jonathan.bowen@lsbu.ac.uk
www.jpbowen.com
The Turing Guide (OUP, 2016)