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| Alan Turing Year - the Establishment still doesn't get it | Alan Turing Year - the Establishment still doesn't get it |
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| When the Olympic flame called by Manchester's statue of Alan Turing on what would have been his 100th birthday, 23 June last year, we saw the poignant highlight of an incredible series of centenary celebrations. | When the Olympic flame called by Manchester's statue of Alan Turing on what would have been his 100th birthday, 23 June last year, we saw the poignant highlight of an incredible series of centenary celebrations. |
| For it was at Manchester University – on one side of the statue and its bench in Sackville Park while the city's Gay Village is on the other – that the computer pioneer took the first groundbreaking steps towards today's 'artificial intelligence', bequeathing us the Turing Test for intelligence in machines. | For it was at Manchester University – on one side of the statue and its bench in Sackville Park while the city's Gay Village is on the other – that the computer pioneer took the first groundbreaking steps towards today's 'artificial intelligence', bequeathing us the Turing Test for intelligence in machines. |
| It was also in Manchester that the World War II code-breaker was convicted in 1952 for having gay sex, subjected to state-enforced chemical castration and committed suicide two years later. What a contrast that the Olympic relay, which Turing would have enjoyed as a marathon runner himself, came here to honour him. All year, he was at the centre of commemorations in more than 40 countries, from Norway to Colombia and from the Philippines to Canada. | It was also in Manchester that the World War II code-breaker was convicted in 1952 for having gay sex, subjected to state-enforced chemical castration and committed suicide two years later. What a contrast that the Olympic relay, which Turing would have enjoyed as a marathon runner himself, came here to honour him. All year, he was at the centre of commemorations in more than 40 countries, from Norway to Colombia and from the Philippines to Canada. |
| Designated as Alan Turing Year, 2012 saw an unprecedented level of interest in the man and his work, with public events, TV films, exhibitions and conferences big and small. Channel 4 showed the acclaimed film Britain's Greatest Codebreaker - now edited and touring internationally as Codebreaker - and London's Science Museum staged an exhibition called Codebreaker: Alan Turing's Life and Legacy. | Designated as Alan Turing Year, 2012 saw an unprecedented level of interest in the man and his work, with public events, TV films, exhibitions and conferences big and small. Channel 4 showed the acclaimed film Britain's Greatest Codebreaker - now edited and touring internationally as Codebreaker - and London's Science Museum staged an exhibition called Codebreaker: Alan Turing's Life and Legacy. |
| Bletchley Park, with support from Google (which also did a fine doodle to mark the centenary), marketed an Alan Turing Monopoly set in time for Christmas stockings. Twitter was abuzz with Turingtalk and the Turing Year page drew followers from Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation to Gordon Brown's wife Sarah. The Pet Shop Boys got together with the BBC Philharmonic to perform a Turing-inspired composition. My own hectic Turing year, apart from many events in the UK, took in talks as far afield as New Zealand, Switzerland, China and Hong Kong, Taiwan, Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, the USA, Mexico and Brazil. More than simply amazing, the whole great enterprise fitted brilliantly with the focus on British science, innovation, and eccentricity which was so engagingly lauded in the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies. | Bletchley Park, with support from Google (which also did a fine doodle to mark the centenary), marketed an Alan Turing Monopoly set in time for Christmas stockings. Twitter was abuzz with Turingtalk and the Turing Year page drew followers from Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation to Gordon Brown's wife Sarah. The Pet Shop Boys got together with the BBC Philharmonic to perform a Turing-inspired composition. My own hectic Turing year, apart from many events in the UK, took in talks as far afield as New Zealand, Switzerland, China and Hong Kong, Taiwan, Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, the USA, Mexico and Brazil. More than simply amazing, the whole great enterprise fitted brilliantly with the focus on British science, innovation, and eccentricity which was so engagingly lauded in the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies. |
| The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, paid tribute to Turing at Bletchley Park, and the head of GCHQ Iain Lobban spoke publicly in Leeds, about Turing as a | The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, paid tribute to Turing at Bletchley Park, and the head of GCHQ Iain Lobban spoke publicly in Leeds, about Turing as a |
| "Founder of the Information Age" whose work influenced everything from washing machines to smart phones. | "Founder of the Information Age" whose work influenced everything from washing machines to smart phones. |
I could even post my letters with an Alan Turing commemorative stamp. | I could even post my letters with an Alan Turing commemorative stamp. |
| But here we meet a truly Alice-In-Wonderland mismatch between Establishment self-serving and individual genius. The details of Alan Turing's conviction for 'a homosexual act' - the sort of human rights violation for which we nowadays condemn other countries - can be easily found on the web or in the centenary edition of Andrew Hodges' biography of Turing, as can evidence of his subsequent anguish. It was not only the enforced medication which affected and in the end destroyed this great scientist; the public humiliation also played its part. In 1952 Alan wrote to his friend Norman Routledge: | But here we meet a truly Alice-In-Wonderland mismatch between Establishment self-serving and individual genius. The details of Alan Turing's conviction for 'a homosexual act' - the sort of human rights violation for which we nowadays condemn other countries - can be easily found on the web or in the centenary edition of Andrew Hodges' biography of Turing, as can evidence of his subsequent anguish. It was not only the enforced medication which affected and in the end destroyed this great scientist; the public humiliation also played its part. In 1952 Alan wrote to his friend Norman Routledge: |
| Turing believes machines think. Turing lies with men. Therefore machines do not think. | Turing believes machines think. Turing lies with men. Therefore machines do not think. |
| The injustice remains. But in 2012 it was Manchester more than any other city that took Alan Turing to its heart, honouring him with particular creativity, enthusiasm and sheer affection. There was bubbling local pride in the fact that the first 'real' computer in the world, the 'Manchester baby' was Mancunian; and that the first computer chess programme was run in the city by Turing's friend Dietrich Prinz, who had previously been a student of Albert Einstein in Berlin. Much of this early history has been brought to life at the city's Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI); and during the year that came complete with an Alan Turing actor mingling with visitors. | The injustice remains. But in 2012 it was Manchester more than any other city that took Alan Turing to its heart, honouring him with particular creativity, enthusiasm and sheer affection. There was bubbling local pride in the fact that the first 'real' computer in the world, the 'Manchester baby' was Mancunian; and that the first computer chess programme was run in the city by Turing's friend Dietrich Prinz, who had previously been a student of Albert Einstein in Berlin. Much of this early history has been brought to life at the city's Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI); and during the year that came complete with an Alan Turing actor mingling with visitors. |
| MOSI and the Manchester Museum also stretched our minds with Turing's explanations of patterns in nature: embroidering Rudyard Kipling's 'How the Leopard Got Its Spots' with super-clever mathematics of morphogenesis explaining moving stripes on tropical fish and giving computer simulations of emergent dappling of cows' backs. Professor Bernard Richards, who worked with Turing in this area, gave talks, and was presented with an award by the Queen for his contribution of a morphogenesis memento for a 2012 time capsule. Most excitingly for countless school children was the Turing's Sunflowers experiment from MOSI and the Manchester Science Festival, getting them counting whorls on sunflower heads to verify Turing's ideas about the link to 'Fibonacci numbers'. | MOSI and the Manchester Museum also stretched our minds with Turing's explanations of patterns in nature: embroidering Rudyard Kipling's 'How the Leopard Got Its Spots' with super-clever mathematics of morphogenesis explaining moving stripes on tropical fish and giving computer simulations of emergent dappling of cows' backs. Professor Bernard Richards, who worked with Turing in this area, gave talks, and was presented with an award by the Queen for his contribution of a morphogenesis memento for a 2012 time capsule. Most excitingly for countless school children was the Turing's Sunflowers experiment from MOSI and the Manchester Science Festival, getting them counting whorls on sunflower heads to verify Turing's ideas about the link to 'Fibonacci numbers'. |
| Computer science, whose origins go back to Turing's 1936 discovery of the Universal Turing Machine, was treated to a magnificent international conference at Manchester town hall, with chess celebrity Garry Kasparov winning against Turing's early computer chess program. During the meeting, the Olympic flame reappeared outside. | Computer science, whose origins go back to Turing's 1936 discovery of the Universal Turing Machine, was treated to a magnificent international conference at Manchester town hall, with chess celebrity Garry Kasparov winning against Turing's early computer chess program. During the meeting, the Olympic flame reappeared outside. |
| The Alan Turing Cryptography Competition for schools run by Manchester University, was so popular that it is being repeated as I write. And perhaps the leading contender for greatest fun was 2012 Manchester Pride, braving the complications of science with a whole week dedicated to Turing and his record as an openly gay man in early 1950s Britain. It showed how he was before his time socially, as well as in science. | The Alan Turing Cryptography Competition for schools run by Manchester University, was so popular that it is being repeated as I write. And perhaps the leading contender for greatest fun was 2012 Manchester Pride, braving the complications of science with a whole week dedicated to Turing and his record as an openly gay man in early 1950s Britain. It showed how he was before his time socially, as well as in science. |
| Turing's vision underlies the overarching edifice that is today's computer age. Writer George Dyson calls this awesome memorial Turing's Cathedral, the title of his centenary book about the digital world and its origins. We have a virtual memorial to Turing in the form of the informational age that structures our everyday lives but we still sadly have no physical memorial to the scientist in London. In his review of Dyson's book, Peter Forbes comments: | Turing's vision underlies the overarching edifice that is today's computer age. Writer George Dyson calls this awesome memorial Turing's Cathedral, the title of his centenary book about the digital world and its origins. We have a virtual memorial to Turing in the form of the informational age that structures our everyday lives but we still sadly have no physical memorial to the scientist in London. In his review of Dyson's book, Peter Forbes comments: |
| Britain's societal failings are still painfully on show in the Establishment's cack-handed efforts to make amends for the persecution Turing suffered. | Britain's societal failings are still painfully on show in the Establishment's cack-handed efforts to make amends for the persecution Turing suffered. |
| Gordon Brown made a heartfelt apology in 2009; in 2012 Lord Sharkey called in the Lords for a pardon, and MP John Leech's Commons early day motion attracted 28 signatures from across all the main parties. But the world still awaits a formal rebuttal of the historic injustice. | Gordon Brown made a heartfelt apology in 2009; in 2012 Lord Sharkey called in the Lords for a pardon, and MP John Leech's Commons early day motion attracted 28 signatures from across all the main parties. But the world still awaits a formal rebuttal of the historic injustice. |
| Today's Cabinet, with no science graduate (the Minister for Universities and Science did politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford) is symptomatic of a historic lack of understanding of and support for the unique scientific achievements of the UK. Our national capital has no memorial to Alan Turing comparable to Manchester's. The government's refusal to grant him a pardon during the centenary year leaves instead a misguided conviction under a misguided law and an Establishment that didn't get it and still doesn't. | Today's Cabinet, with no science graduate (the Minister for Universities and Science did politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford) is symptomatic of a historic lack of understanding of and support for the unique scientific achievements of the UK. Our national capital has no memorial to Alan Turing comparable to Manchester's. The government's refusal to grant him a pardon during the centenary year leaves instead a misguided conviction under a misguided law and an Establishment that didn't get it and still doesn't. |
| But it was a wonderful year and countless people gave time and energy to make that the case. Turing changed our world, and 2012 has made us all a bit more aware of how that happened - and of what may be coming next. | But it was a wonderful year and countless people gave time and energy to make that the case. Turing changed our world, and 2012 has made us all a bit more aware of how that happened - and of what may be coming next. |
| Professor S. Barry Cooper is a mathematician at the University of Leeds. He chaired the Turing Centenary Advisory Committee which co-ordinated the Alan Turing Year and is President of the association Computability in Europe. | Professor S. Barry Cooper is a mathematician at the University of Leeds. He chaired the Turing Centenary Advisory Committee which co-ordinated the Alan Turing Year and is President of the association Computability in Europe. |
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