[News] Alan Turing
- Thread starter banjo
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crodonilson
He/Him
Personally would like to have seen Alec Scott and/or Ruel Fox.
Title sorted for you.
AmexRuislip
Retired Spy 🕵️♂️
I think it's brilliant 
I’m 55 and don’t think I have ever owned a £50 note.
The only time I have even seen one was when someone dropped one out of his pocket exiting the Amex which I picked up and gave back to him.
The only time I have even seen one was when someone dropped one out of his pocket exiting the Amex which I picked up and gave back to him.
Leekbrookgull
Well-known member
Like you so why not a Diver or Florence ?
father_and_son
Well-known member
boik
Well-known member
Turing was a proper genius, but Tommy Flowers was the unsung hero. Never gets the recognition, but that's probably how he'd want it.
macbeth
Dismembered
Genuinely, I'm very happy to see it. But it feels a bit strange given that conversion therapy is still legal. Needs banning ASAP, which I'm aware the Bank of England have no control over.
spongy
Well-known member
I've had a few in my time. When I say a few I mean about 10. And all at the same time when I sold a car about 15 years ago.
Didn't want to cash them in at the bank but also didn't want to spend them. Especially as it was difficult trying to use a nifty to buy a pack of fags and a pint of milk at 6.30am from the local shop.
Since contact less spending has been prioritised since Covid rocked up I cant remember the last time I actually had ANY coins in my wallet.
I purposely used the "pay at cashier" option at the petrol station to get change to pump up a tyre the other day as i didn't want to use the £2 coin I've had for over a month. Only go be told they can't give change anymore due to covid and that I should just use the contact less option on the air machine....
Since when did an air machine have a contact less option
?
It was only a month ago I realised that pay and display parking meters did card payments and have purposely been avoiding the towns car parks as i never had the correct change any more.
The world's changing....
Didn't want to cash them in at the bank but also didn't want to spend them. Especially as it was difficult trying to use a nifty to buy a pack of fags and a pint of milk at 6.30am from the local shop.
Since contact less spending has been prioritised since Covid rocked up I cant remember the last time I actually had ANY coins in my wallet.
I purposely used the "pay at cashier" option at the petrol station to get change to pump up a tyre the other day as i didn't want to use the £2 coin I've had for over a month. Only go be told they can't give change anymore due to covid and that I should just use the contact less option on the air machine....
Since when did an air machine have a contact less option
?It was only a month ago I realised that pay and display parking meters did card payments and have purposely been avoiding the towns car parks as i never had the correct change any more.
The world's changing....
Cian
Well-known member
I've never understood why 50s are so rare in the UK. I've never, ever had one and I've taken hundreds of pounds out of ATMs and even sold a car for cash in the UK
Back in the before-days, when you'd actually go those things called pubs, I'd be using €50s every week. Still have two in my wallet from the last time I used an ATM, in February 2020. And the local shop absolutely would take one for milk and bread at 3am, cause they're totally normal. Now, the €100 note is extremely rare here and harder to shift than the clap.
You'd spend >50 in many cash transactions, at least pre-COVID anyways, so why not use 50s?
Its nowhere near as odd as the US insisting on using $1 bills, but still a tad odd.
Back in the before-days, when you'd actually go those things called pubs, I'd be using €50s every week. Still have two in my wallet from the last time I used an ATM, in February 2020. And the local shop absolutely would take one for milk and bread at 3am, cause they're totally normal. Now, the €100 note is extremely rare here and harder to shift than the clap.
You'd spend >50 in many cash transactions, at least pre-COVID anyways, so why not use 50s?
Its nowhere near as odd as the US insisting on using $1 bills, but still a tad odd.
clapham_gull
Legacy Fan
- Aug 20, 2003
- 25,877
But Turing was a genius beyond his work at Bletchley. I get frustrated his name is usually only associated it.
He is one of the most influential people in the world of modern computing and is known as "the father of computer science".
Completely off the scale genius who was describing how software could be written for modern computers years before those computers existed.
He is the UK's Leonardo Di Vinci. Unlike Leonardo his "machines" actually worked and dominate our modern lives.
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Great post.
In part in reminds me of a passage in Stephen Fry’s autobiography (not that I am suggesting for a moment that Stephen Fry’s intellect even gets close to Turing’s, which as you say was “off the scale.”)
Anyway, when at prep school, Fry broke into the headmasters study and found his academic records. Against his name were just two words: “Approaching genius.”
Fry recalls being affronted by the word “Approaching” and at that point went off the rails.
clapham_gull
Legacy Fan
- Aug 20, 2003
- 25,877
If you ever do any sort of computer programming (even at a very basic level) and wonder who made this happen look no further than Turin and Von Neumann.
I'd also throw in another 19th genius Englishman George Boole.
Turin is a clear candidate for the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square.
I'd also throw in another 19th genius Englishman George Boole.
Turin is a clear candidate for the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square.
Beach Hut
Brighton Bhuna Boy
Turing was way ahead of his time in thinking and understanding what was probably not even called then computing.
His genius at cracking the Nazi codes ended WW2 far earlier and is an outstanding contributor to peace in the 20th century.
Finally a fitting tribute to a great true British genius.
His genius at cracking the Nazi codes ended WW2 far earlier and is an outstanding contributor to peace in the 20th century.
Finally a fitting tribute to a great true British genius.
Absolutely this. Who knows what he'd have achieved if he hadn't been hounded to death. Computing has many fathers but he was right up there with Zuse and Von Neumann. He was unquestionably the father of artificial intelligence though and was way ahead of his time in thinking how computers could mirror what the brain did.
The UK, thanks to Turing, Flowers, Hartree and Wilkes were at least the equal of the US, possibly ahead of them and that advantage was blown. What a waste.
I recommend Andrew Hodges' book on Turing - it's a great read
clapham_gull
Legacy Fan
- Aug 20, 2003
- 25,877
I went back to University years ago as a very mature student after blagging my way onto a Computer Science Masters. What surprised me was it was mostly theoretical and you spend little time in front of them. I learnt about Turing and particularly his theoretical computer.
They first get you writing some simple C++ on an actual machine than you have to "re-write" it on a long piece of paper. That consists of single characters in a long line and instructions to a theoretical "tape head" on what to do when it encounters it.
Then the penny drops.
Not much has actually changed logically (under the hood) and he was describing it before the computers existed to run it. To add to that, although it would could take years to run any complex software on a "Turing Machine", if it wouldn't run on his theoretical version it wouldn't run on a super computer to be invented in the future.
In that he defined what was "computable" which is the foundation of what we now understand as software and the computers we need to execute it.
He is up there with the absolute best this country has produced before him and after.
His work at Bletchley although important historically was remarkably simply a "side-line" to his overall influence.
They first get you writing some simple C++ on an actual machine than you have to "re-write" it on a long piece of paper. That consists of single characters in a long line and instructions to a theoretical "tape head" on what to do when it encounters it.
Then the penny drops.
Not much has actually changed logically (under the hood) and he was describing it before the computers existed to run it. To add to that, although it would could take years to run any complex software on a "Turing Machine", if it wouldn't run on his theoretical version it wouldn't run on a super computer to be invented in the future.
In that he defined what was "computable" which is the foundation of what we now understand as software and the computers we need to execute it.
He is up there with the absolute best this country has produced before him and after.
His work at Bletchley although important historically was remarkably simply a "side-line" to his overall influence.
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- Jan 3, 2012
- 17,357
We went to Bletchley Park a couple of years ago and the one thing that fascinated me most was the idea that the person in charge - whose name escapes me - had the foresight to realise that they needed to employ brilliant people and to accept that they would include a number of oddballs and eccentrics who had to be given the freedom to live life as they chose - very different to the normal military thing of unquestioningly accepting discipline.
A pity, in Turing’s case in particular, that it didn’t extend to everyday life.