Download Alan Turing Biography

Alan Turing: legacies for computing and for humanity
André Noronha Furtado de Mendonca, Camilla Mozzini and Clarissa Felkl Prevedello
Introduction
The Museum presents the exhibition UFRGS Alan Turing: legacies for computing and
for humanity, aims to bring the public the life and work of British mathematician,
logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist, known for creating the conditions for
computability and take a central role in the development of the first computers. Turing
was a mathematician who, through his calculations defeated Hitler's bombs, but rather
by being consecrated, died forgotten.
Alan Turing was born in 1912 in London. Being a shy boy, did not have much talent to
socialize and did not care much about appearance. In school he was known only for
being introverted odd, ironic and unwilling to respect rules.
At 24, he published an article of great importance to pure mathematics, calling On
computable numbers. In it were proved that calculations be made impossible, and to see
a practical application that no one at the time realized. Turing envisioned a machine that
can do all the calculations possible, provided that you give the appropriate instructions.
Even the article does not mention making chips or processors, he presented
mathematical formulas that describe exactly what later would change the world: the
computer.
One of his most famous texts is computing machinery and intelligence, with technical
analysis and philosophical considerations, responded to some of the speculation about
the possibility of time machines dominate humans. But Turing's argument is very
interesting: he said that infallibility is not necessarily a prerequisite of intelligence, so
machines are not necessarily smart. But at the same time upset the trend "rote" of
intellectuals to think that a machine can never reach the human brain, simply because
the brain is ... human. He wondered if a car needed legs to outrun a human.
Interested in Artificial Intelligence, Turing was also responsible for the development of
a test, known as the Turing Test, which consisted of an operator can not distinguish if
the answers to questions developed by the operator were coming or not a computer. If
so, your computer could be considered as endowed with artificial intelligence. Your
machine can be programmed so that it can mimic any formal system. Since then the idea
of computability began to be delineated.
In 1939, during World War II, Turing worked for British intelligence at Bletchley Park,
a center dedicated to code breaking. Turing was convened by the British army to crack
the code of a machine called Enigma, a gear system able to shuffle the letters before the
transmission of messages by telegraph. The Germans considered the Enigma codes
indecipherable, but Turing was able to break them.
But he was not just a theorist, also dirtied his hands in the grease. One of his inventions,
the Colossus, a huge tangle of servo motors and metal, considered a forerunner of
digital computers. In the beginning, took weeks to become a understandable message.
But in 1942, the British were using the machine to decode 50 000 messages per month,
about one per minute. This provided that German submarines were quickly slaughtered.
During the war, Turing was sent to the United States to establish codes for secure
communications between the transatlantic allies. It is assumed that it was in Princeton,
NJ, she met John von Neumann and then participated in the design of the ENIAC at the
University of Pennsylvania.
Due to all these accomplishments, Alan Turing is considered the father of computer
science.
On the night of June 7, 1954, the mathematician dies during an episode of depression
due to the persecution suffered for being gay. He was found lying on his bed after biting
an apple that had been dipped in a jar of cyanide.
Brief Biography:
1912 - Born on June 23, Warrington Crescent, 2, London W9, UK.
1922 - Studied at the Preparatory School of Hazelhurst.
1926 - He attended high school at Sherborne School in Dorset.
1931 - He began to study mathematics at Kings College, Cambridge.
1935 - He was elected an associate member of Kings College.
1936 - Publishes his most important theoretical work: On computable numbers with an
application for Entsheidungsproblem. From this work, fundamental to modern computer
science. Moved from Cambridge to Princeton University, USA, to continue his
research.
1938 - concluded his doctoral thesis: Systems of logic based on ordinals. He returned to
his seat in Kings.
1939 - He started to live at Bletchley Park, the first day of the second guerra.Começa
decipher the codex of the naval version of the Enigma machine. Banburismus invented
and designed the Bombe.
1940 - Completes first bombe, named Victoria, located in Cabin 8.
1941 - Break the codes of the naval version of the Enigma machine for the first time,
contributing decisively to the submarine warfare.
1942 - Added to the team effort trying to decipher the German Lorenz machine.
Turingismus invented, the first systematic method to break the Lorenz codes and the
precursor of the methods used in Colossus. He crossed the Atlantic to contact the
American codebreakers and builders of the Bombe.
1943 - Began work on voice encryption in Hanslope Park.
1945 - Joined the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington and designed the
ACE computer.
1945 - Awarded the OBE for his services in WWII.
1946 - It began a cycle of lectures on computer design, in London, between December
1946 and February 1947.
1947 - held its first paletra that we know about artificial intelligence, thus founding the
field that is now called Artificial Intelligence.
1948 - He described a neural computing machine simp, anticipating the field now
known as neural networks. He left the NPL and joined the Computing Machine
Laboratory in Manchester.
1949 - Developed a pioneering work in the field now known as verification programs.
1950 - Published computing machinery and intelligence, the birthplace of what is now
known as the Turing test. He wrote the Handbook for Manchester Electronic Computer
programmers.
1950 - declares homosexuality as their sexual orientation.
1951 - Elected member of the Royal Society of London.
1951 - agree to submit to the administration of female hormones as a form of chemical
castration in order to avoid prosecution and prison for indecent exposure.
1952 - Publicadou the chemical basis of morphogenesis, anticipating the field now
known as Artificial Life.
1952 - is convicted of indecent assault. It is away from his research in computing and
suffers humiliation and Public Administration.
1954 - Death by cyanide poisoning.
On September 11, 2009, 55 years after his death, Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom, Gordon Brown apologized on behalf of formal British government by biased
and inhumane treatment given to Turing.
Source: Bletchley Park National Codes Centre
Alan Turing Brazil Exhibition 2012
For the visitor to the Museum of UFRGS can better understand the legacy of Turing, the
exhibition was divided into 5 parts, which aim to clarify the relevant aspects of the work
of Turing.
In the lobby you can watch a video biography of Alan Turing and know the contents
available in all areas. There will also be an interactive table with which the visitor can
interact with an augmented reality experience.
In the second room, visitors learn about the Enigma machine and understand how
Turing might influence the victory of the Allies against the German offensive. Turing
also contributed to the development of artificial intelligence. In this sense, the visitor
can participate in the Turing test in chat rooms and find out if the other side there is
only one person or a machine. Understand the bridge that joins two great moments of
humanity: War and the Internet through encryption.
In the third area, interior decoration set in Bletchley Park, the visitor will see the
operation of the Turing machine and understand how mathematics contributed to
computing, and meet other contemporary thinkers to Turing, like John von Neumann,
among others, continued his research.
The fourth area is intended for science fiction, ethics and robotics in this area the public
can learn about how science fiction has influenced the advancement of science,
including in fields such as philosophy. You will be confronted with ethical issues
concerning the development of intelligent machines and you can discover a little of
what has come true and what is being produced in the world of robotics, including here
at UFRGS.
In the fifth environment the visitor will be asked: Are the machines actually awaken to
consciousness? What would be the conscience? What is a brain? The awakening of the
Self in the machines is a matter of time, or is it something that will never be achieved?
This area will raise these issues to the public that these issues are still open. Will face
the two main philosophies that address this issue, but the conclusion is up to the visitor.
It will also be offered an area for the projection of videos related to the work of Alan
Turing and visitors can also participate by voting for the video contest, part of the
activities that comprise the Alan Turing Year Brazil 2012.
Thus, the exhibition aims to increase awareness about this important figure who has
contributed to the development of computing, bringing their contributions to public
understanding of academic and nonacademic.
References
BURGIERMAN, D. R. Alan Turing. Super Interesting. Ed 159. Dec 2000.
Leavitt, D. The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the
Computer. Ribeirao Preto: New Concept, 2007.