I am currently reading all be it occasionally, 'The Secret Life of Bletchley Park,' so far not a great book by any means, but getting better. One constant seems to remain in as far as I have got, is that Turing was possibly the one true genius in their midst.

I was interested in one quote and by no means is it a revelation but thought it was interesting coming from a man surrounded by intellectual elites vastly more powerful than most of us are ever likely to meet as n individual ' “is that there is all the difference between a very intelligent person and a genius. With very intelligent people, you talk to them, they come out with an idea, and you say to yourself… I could have had that idea. You never had that feeling with Alan Turing at all. He constantly surprised you with the originality of his thinking. He was marvellous."

The persecution of Alan Turing is a permanent stain on the 20th century history of the UK. Churchill acknowledged that he and his colleagues at Bletchley Park probably shortened the war by two years (yet still insisted on destroying all of their working machines and documents, rather than using them as the springboard for a post-war UK computer industry). His face on a banknote is the least that should be done to honour his memory - so don't expect any action any time soon.

Alan Turing has a place in history. That, they cannot take away.

(yet still insisted on destroying all of their working machines and documents, rather than using them as the springboard for a post-war UK computer industry)

Remember that war time science was passed to the USA to be developed, who would then feed the developed technology back to us.

The system is very good at devouring genius, look at Nikola Tesla. A massive portfolio of work including the radio he patented, which was taken away from him and given to Marconi, then return posthumously once it was worthless. A man who without the aid of one or two good friends would have died destitute of malnutrition. Even today, history labels him as some nutter who claim to have invented a death ray, which was probably a high power microwave emitter and whos note books where taken by the FBI within hours of his death being noticed.

Great article. . . Just a genius. . .

one aspect of the tragedy is that we typically get pieces like this which go into great length and detail about the manner and circumstances of his death, while saying very little about his actual accomplishments

Pointless to pass judgement on the past based on the morality of today. His sexuality was the same as many heroic men and women who fought and died . I think that the issue is the British way of generally ignoring great scientists. Apart from the occasional Berners-Lee, Wallis and Dyson (ok, a short list but you get my point!) the people who have made stunning breakthroughs maybe benefiting the world are largely kept in obscurity. I know a bit about this bloke but the use of the computer to suss out the problem with the early comets, that was news to me! And sadly, quite exciting news........ Pint of mild please!

What monsters people can be and yet things have changed so much in a life time. It gives me hope that things like animal cruelty and honor killings will also become anathema in the near future.

That Turing deserved way better is obvious. He should hailed around the world as a hero.

If you're a fan of Turing, or even have a passing interest PLEASE go and visit Bletchley Park, it's still there, bits of it are as it was when it was shut down. There's also the National computer museum which is amazing, you can sit and play Jet Set Willy and Paperboy on original hardware, or stand next to a Cray supercomputer. There's a rusting old Harrier jump jet too. The whole place speaks of Britain's faded glory.

The persecution of Alan Turing is a permanent stain on the 20th century history of the UK</blockquote
Perhaps, my view is the same as his nephew mentions in the article, he was a victim of the prevailing social and legal attitudes of the time. Pardoning him won't change that.
Far better I feel, to honour the man's work and legacy and visit Bletchley, and make a donation. Turning was a genius, but Bletchley was a team effort (all be it teams in silos!)
Even the cafe has a scholarly refectory feel about it, (pasty, chips and peas anyone?) It's one of the most evocative museums I know, purely because it hasn't been updated or dumbed down and become 'an experience' like so many of the London museums.

aw phooey the formatting's gone screwy, but you catch my drift.
http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/
And your ticket's valid for a whole year too!

I think that the issue is the British way of generally ignoring great scientists. Apart from the occasional Berners-Lee, Wallis and Dyson

Dyson? All he did was improve the design of the vacuum cleaner - and then move its manufacture to the far east.

Crikey, comparing Dyson, and Alan Turing is just plain wrong.
Turing was a selfless genius
Dyson isn't

He is a reminder to how arrogant and hypocrite we are when judging other countries' attitudes towards gay people.

Alan Turing died about half a century, ago and his death impresses us dearly today. But homophobia is still present, even in the Dutch society which used to be thought as one of the most tolerant.

Though many of the people from the western societies still do not accept gay people, we are ready to use the homophobia argument in our debate against muslim societies.

Britain and its ruling elites have pissed most innovations up against the wall leaving the benefits to other nations.

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henryaxe is talking about Freeman Dyson, NOT James Dyson of vacuum cleaner fame! Shame on you! Have you never heard of the Dyson Sphere?

"Freeman John Dyson FRS is a British-born American theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering." -- Wikipedia

It's Freeman Dyson who is meant, NOT James Dyson!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson

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The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Relics" - The crew of the USS Enterprise-D happens upon a full Dyson sphere when its gravitational fluctuations distort their warp field and bring them to a stop. Being further advanced than the Federation, the sphere's automatic systems pulled the ship through a door-equipped portal into the structure, revealing the majority of the shell inside was covered with habitable regions, including weather. Lieutenant Commander Data stated that the inside surface area was equal to "250 million class-M worlds." As the diameter of the sphere is given as being 200 million kilometers or two thirds the Earth's orbit around the sun this would indicate that the surface area of one "M-class world" is in fact equivalent to the Earth's surface area. About "Relics", Dyson said: "Actually it was sort of fun to watch it. It's all nonsense, but it's quite a good piece of cinema."[

Please forgive my ignorance too. Thank you for the edification.

Alan Turin must have gone through all the permutations of sexuality, it is sad that he was forced into death.

An incredible man with a massive contribution to the war effort. Terrible that he was hounded to his death by the authorities. Thankfully he is still remembered for the great things he did.

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coming from a man surrounded by intellectual elites vastly more powerful than most of us are ever likely to meet as n individual

Nice to see the word "elites" used as other than a boo word meaning rich.

Simon Singh's "The Code Book" contains a fantastically understandable chapter about Turing's techniques and achievements, and is a really good read anyway (except for the quantum computing bit, which is way beyond me).

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Respect and shame on those who drove you to despair .... a lesson in a modern age

Thanks. I googled "Dyson sphere" and the first link was to "Dyson ball vacuum cleaner" ...

Turing was gay, and in 1952 while working at Manchester University, where he had a relationship with a technician called Arnold Murray, he was arrested and charged with gross indecency. He escaped prison only by agreeing to chemical castration through a year's doses of oestrogen - which curator David Rooney said had a devastating effect on him, mentally and physically.

And

"So many people were condemned properly under the then law for offences which we now see entirely differently. One would not wish to think that Turing won a pardon merely because he is famous, that might be just a step too far. But the suggestion that there might be some reparation by having him appear on the back of a bank note – that might indeed be good."

So, no mention of what happened to Arnold Murray, despite being accused of exactly the same offence?

Or, was there something more sinister involved with Turing, something you're not telling us as it would affect our perception of Turing?

When I read stories like this part of me becomes utterly depressed at the stupidity, intolerance and cruelty of the human race and another part marvels that we can produce such genius among us.

Thanks, I did not choose it to make a point but because it means what it means. I almost wish I had.

Bob Shaw's (splendid!) SF novel 'Orbitsville' is mostly set in a Dyson sphere; AFAIK this was the first example in fiction.

Also highly recommended is Larry Niven's equally epic 'Ringworld', though this is set in a Dyson Ring.

Back on topic, the reason all but one of the Colossus computers were dismantled after the war was because Britain sold on the Enigma technology to unsuspecting countries, leading them to believe that it (and its more complex sibling Tunny - the raison d'etre of Colossus) was still secure. The Powers That Be decided this was more important than any potential commercial exploitation. Hence also the nearly 30 year total blackout period before we owned up.

Before the revelations were made public, I had a high regard for 'The World at War' and Monty. The former is now shown to be woefully incomplete and the latter insisted on going ahead with Operation Market Garden despite being given clear and unambiguous Ultra intelligence pointing out his folly.

You think I made it up? I quoted a respected author chapter and verse. And this from a newspaper I've championed for 40 years.

By far, Turing's most beautiful and interesting work is of that in theoretical computability. He showed, for example, that the halting problem is not decidable by introducing concepts such as the universal Turing machine. This had many deep implications in mathematical logic, showing, for example, a weaker version of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem.

Unfortunately, the media tends to assume that people are too stupid to be able to start to understand this work, which is a real shame, because it is so extraordinary.

The media is correct though. Or rather, it isn't that peoplebare stupid, it is that theory of computation concepts are difficult. If you understand a concept it seems easy, if you don't, you can't achieve understanding, mastery, the way you can in say programming code, ie via brute force, via putting in the time.

And Turing's breakthrough came from his own biological intuitions about machine intelligence, which we may now regard as twee, but who knows where he might have taken things had he lived? Still it is that thinking "outside the box" that was part of his genius.

If you listen to the director's commentary for the film Battle of Britain, he recounts that when they were filming in the 1960s, the ex-RAF pilots said that they won because they always knew where the Germans were. He didn't believe this then, but now we know they were right, the Luftwaffe codes had been cracked.

So many people were condemned properly under the then law for offences which we now see entirely differently. One would not wish to think that Turing won a pardon merely because he is famous, that might be just a step too far.

How about pardoning everyone who was convicted under this shameful law? Anything less would be completely unacceptable.

Just imagine if Turing had not been driven to suicide by the shameful ignorance and prejudice of homophobia. His brilliant pioneering work would have continued and developed through the 50s and 60s, ensuring that this country would have been a world leader in the IT field. But look at us now, a pipsqueak nation on the sidelines of world events. Having said that though, the Tories probably would have sold the benefits to their City chums and thence abroad, like all the other privatised utilities. Food for thought, though...

Turing may have been brilliant, but he was also convicted of committing what he knew was a criminal offence. A pardon would be ridiculous.

You should try "The Secrets of Station X" by Michael Smith, which is much better than the McKay on the actual codebreaking.

Turing may have been brilliant, but he was also convicted of committing what he knew was a criminal offence. A pardon would be ridiculous.

No it wouldn't. A pardon for Turing and all others convicted of the same 'offence' would be far from ridiculous. What's ridiculous is that the law he 'broke' ever existed in the first place. As humans we should look back and say, "that was wrong of us, and we posthumously and with the humblest of apologies pardon all those accused", but that would open the government up to all sorts of recriminations; far easier for them to just bungle along pretending it didnt happen.

Finally, confirmation that all those hours I spent watching Star Trek weren't wasted. =)

Terribly sad that even in our more enlightened era this thread still attracts homophobic idiots and apologists for wrongful laws.

Turing was one of the few genuine geniuses this country managed to produce in the 20th century. A posthumous pardon is the very least that is required.

I am sure that suicide for Alan Turing was a warm relief. He saw just how incredibly horrendous human beings can be. One in the form of the Nazi regime, and the other in the form of the UK government who betaryed him because of who he was and not what he did.

Here was a man who was fiercly intelligent, that was being judged by partially logically morons. People that were his inferior in every conceivable way, yet sought to make us believe that Turing was mentally ill, and needed treatment.

I know we live in more enlightened times, but human beings can be so damn stupid

Turing may have been brilliant, but he was also convicted of committing what he knew was a criminal offence. A pardon would be ridiculous.

I see your point. Having sex with a consenting adult in your own home... it's just plain wrong, that.

Turing's story is terribly tragic and so unfair. It seems he just wasn't the right class or didn't have enough influential friends to help him fight his conviction. Other similar transgressions by more famous people during that time were not punished in a similar fashion..
Nothing much ever happened to John Gielgud when he was arrested for soliciting men in the 1950s. He was scared for his reputation and the audience's reaction afterwards, but, luckily, he was so popular and respected for his acting abilities that his career continued to flourish.

Religon has a great deal to answer for.

"Churchill..........still insisted on destroying all of their (Bletchley Park probably shortened the war by two years (yet still insisted on destroying all of's) working machines and documents, rather than using them as the springboard for a post-war UK computer industry"

The same happened to the aviation industry (Miles' supersonic research drone built in 1944, for example).

I have always understood that much of this was done as part of the conditions of paying back the lend-lease help we were given (and leaving the field clear for the Americans), but I may be mistaken about this.