- "Alan Turing", ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Technology's Hero
After WWII, Turing worked on the Automatic Computing Engine at the National Physical Laboratory, delivering a paper on its design. A binary machine, ACE presented the groundbreaking concept of a program stored in the machine's memory that ran it. In 1950, he published a paper entitled "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", exploring Artificial Intelligence and presenting his Turing Test. It is a test of a machine's ability to mimic intelligent behavior equivalent to a human.
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"After the war he worked on the design of the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine), and contributed to some other other scientific and mathematical developments." |
"Benedict Cumberbatch", 2015, Palm Springs International Film Festival
"His insights and fearless approach to daunting problems set benchmarks for decades to come." |
"I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?" |
Turing Machines
According to Dana Angulin of Yale University, "Turing Machines are very simple models of computers introduced by Alan Turing in his 1936 paper, 'On Computable Numbers with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem [The problem to decide for every statement in first order logic whether or not it is derivable in that logic]." There are a few models of a Turing Machine, the most basic including a piece of tape with squares as its memory, each square containing an alphabet of symbols, including a blank.
"The Turing Machine remains the foundation for many of the theoretical aspects of computer science."
- Christof Teuscher (Interview), 2019
Royal PardonIn 2013, Turing was posthumously granted a royal pardon from his conviction of gross indecency after a petition stating that Turing shortened the war and saved millions of lives.
"His later life was overshadowed by his conviction for homosexual activity, a sentence we would now consider unjust and discriminatory and which has now been repealed." |
Royal Pardons
In 2013, Turing’s pardon led to reform. Today, all homosexuals, living and dead who were convicted of past sexual offenses in England and Wales are to receive pardons under the “Turing Law”.
" While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly."
-Gordon Brown (Former Prime Minister of UK), 2009
George Montague, 2016, BBC
Imitation game
"Alan Turing's family speak about their campaign for justice", 2015, 5 News
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Alan Turing remains one of the most prominent figures of the 20th century, remembered for the impact he had on the world as a code-breaker, and as the father of modern computing.