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A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper
- codezero 7y agoWhen I was studying quantum mechanics, I quite often went to this book for a very different perspective on a lot of the details. I found it to be exceptionally well written and had a seemingly different approach from the typical college or graduate level quantum mechanics textbook. We had a copy in one of our department libraries, if you can get your hands on one, I recommend giving it a read when you want a new perspective on an academic quantum mechanics concept :) I am far enough away from that part of my life, I apologize for not being able to give a more detailed and convincing testimonial for this book.
- masteranza 7y agoIndeed. Not only can one get a glance of a unique perspective of one of the founding fathers, but also a lot of important facts not covered in many other textbooks. One of such facts are the low heat capacities of atoms that do not fit any classical theory. This fact alone is able to kill most of the "alternative" interpretations of quantum mechanics that the popular media sell-off as "science" nowadays.
- teilo 7y agoWhere can I read more about this?
- TheGallopedHigh 7y agoI believe you should be able to read about it in the aforementioned book
- hcs 7y agohttps://archive.org/details/1quantumMechanicsByPamDirac https://archive.org/details/1quantumMechanicsByPamDirac I don't know where to start looking, but there's the book (in the original English) for any interested. Edit: a better scan, of the 1st ed: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.177580 https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.177580
- jacobolus 7y ago> "alternative" interpretations of quantum mechanics that the popular media sell-off as "science" nowadays What does this mean?
- gmoot 7y agoMy impression of the different quantum mechanics interpretations (copenhagen, many worlds...) is that they are observationally equivalent. Is this not true?
- acangiano 7y agoMy unpopular opinion is that Stephen Wolfram doesn't get enough credit. Yes, he has a large ego, but he remains one of the most remarkable people in science today.
- getaclue 7y agounpopular by whom?
- api 7y agoI agree. It's a tough one because his ego is so huge he's often accused of taking credit for other peoples' work. My impression from reading through A New Kind of Science is that it wasn't some plot by him to take credit for the whole of CA research but that his ego just kind of caused him to write in such a way as to give that impression. All personalities aside, I feel like the core thesis of this and other books on CAs, fractals, computational physics, etc., are sort of like the edges of some higher scientific theory that we don't yet understand. The entire universe looks like a big fractal with structures repeating with some variation at different scales, and we don't "get" this beyond hand-wavey pure speculation that starts sounding like New Age babble. I wonder if we're just at the edge of being smart enough to grasp this higher order of understanding and if we did we'd have among other things a unified theory of physics. It makes me think of what chimpanzees might feel when we try to teach them language and basic mathematics. They can almost get it. Maybe there are beings out there that "get it" and they're out there doing things that to us would be indistinguishable from magic.
- galaxyLogic 7y agoWhat is a "CA"? I tried googling it but seems there are many CAs. Which CA are you all talking about?
- cma 7y agoCellular Automata
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- groundlogic 7y agoIf you're in London and in any way interested in computing history, you owe it to yourself to visit Bletchley Park. It's a fantastic day visit from London. (About an hour away or so via the railway, as I remember it.) There's a direct train from Paddington, iirc. UK people please fill in.
- _premet 7y agoLess than an hour, in walking distance of Bletchley station, to boot. Go on a weekday morning and you’ll be there in 40m.
- OJFord 7y agoYes, the same features that made it desirable for its wartime usage are rather handy for the tourist today!
- Insanity 7y agoGopherconUK organized a trip there last weekend but sadly could not join due to travel schedule :(
- neves 7y agoWhat will you find at Bletchley Park?
- groundlogic 7y agohttps://bletchleypark.org.uk/ https://bletchleypark.org.uk/ An on-site museum of the WW2 Enigma code breaking activities, where they happened. This is where Alan Turing worked. Live demonstrations of the 1940s eras computer "bombes". But, perhaps, most of all: A chance to visit a historic site.. the activities there could very well have decided the outcome of WW2. There's also a neat live retrocomputing display of early home computers. And it also happens to be a very lovely area to hang around in - nice buildings, park areas, ponds etc.
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- piker 7y ago> But all this came to an end on June 7, 1954, when Turing suddenly died. (My own guess is that it was not suicide, but that’s a different story.) Interesting tidbit there.
- gcbw3 7y agoit's an openly debated topic, ranging from a simple accident to bullying by the state and other conspiracy theories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Death
- thebooktocome 7y ago"Bullying by the state" is not a conspiracy theory. He was actually, objectively punished by the state in a manner that is considered cruel and inhumane by modern standards.
- jakear 7y agoGP may be referring to the actual definition of “conspiracy theory”, in that there are many theories of state conspiracy against Turing.
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- stupidcar 7y agoA real shame that Wolfram gives credence to "handwriting analysis" pseudoscience in what is otherwise an interesting piece. > “The writing style is entirely different. Personality-wise, the writer of sample B has a quicker, more intuitive thinking style than the one of sample A.” How can anybody of Wolfram's intelligence unquestioningly accept this nonsense?
- fmihaila 7y agoThat question is actually interesting when not viewed as rethorical.
- c3534l 7y agoBecause handwriting analysts tell people they are an accepted branch of psychology and there is not enough time in the day to question everything. At some point, I heard handwriting analysis was pseudoscience, so I looked into it and they were right. I've not looked into whether quantum physics is pseudoscience because the people in my life who appear to be experts in the subject tell me it's real and I don't feel like pursuing a physics degree to tell if they're full of it. Regardless of the perception you have of yourself as a critical thinker, for most things we accept thinds as true by default and only flag certain suspicious things for further criticism.
- knodi123 7y agomy magic 8 ball says "Insightful"
- BucketSort 7y agoI write a lot. I can tell from my own experience that what I'm feeling when I write translates into my handwriting in subtle ways. You may object to some particular method that I'm unaware of, but I don't think "handwriting analysis" in general is absurd. It's data and so there are models of it and inferences.
- michaelmrose 7y agoPersonal feelings are not how we evaluate a scientific discipline. It's phrenology level nonsense. A coworker once told me that his chiropractor told him he could help him with hemroids. This not only made me dubious about her ability to cure hemroids. It made me dubious that she could do anything about back pain. Capable people don't spew nonsense within the scope of their capabilities. The second his analyst registered an opinion about the personality of the writer I became dubious that she could even tell who wrote it.
- helloworld 7y agoIt took a while to get to, but I liked this part: In modern times, the Y combinator has been made famous by the Y Combinator startup accelerator, named that way by Paul Graham (who had been a longtime enthusiast of functional programming and the LISP programming language—and had written an early web store using it) because (as he once told me) “nobody understands the Y combinator”. (Needless to say, Y Combinator is all about avoiding having companies go to fixed points…)
- mcnichol 7y agoMy goodness what an incredible journey!
- maynordgayle 7y agoThis guy is borderline fraud. Far from your typical scientist. The way he plays people by distorting historical facts about personal encounters or other personal events. Example: He claims to know person x, which is correct, he may know person x. But often than not I have seen how he almost always puts in his sugar lies. Knows X and he knows why X did this or took this course of action. All I can say, beware of this guy and his many anecdotes he shares about loving people that “he knows” or claims to know.
- radicaldreamer 7y agoAre you talking about Stephen wolfram? His eccentricities are well known... at the same time, his accomplishments are undeniable?
- galonk 7y agoI know SW is famous for his arrogance/egotism, but it still kills me how he always discusses everything in terms of Mathematica's programming language, instead of mathematical notation or pseudo-code. It's like giving a linguistics lecture using the made-up language you invented with your twin.
- tazjin 7y agoThis seems unsurprising to me. Presumably the language he designed fits his way of thinking, and he uses it to express his thoughts. As long as you still understand it he succeeded in using it to communicate, and with some people that's a lot better than them not communicating at all because they have to use someone else's language. If someone comes up with an amazing construct in an invented language and gets any outside eyeballs on it that can understand it, someone will transcribe it into a more common notation anyways.
- baddox 7y agoI don't think your criticism is very accurate here. Wolfram Language code doesn't show up until the second half of the (very long) article, in the sections where he is explaining how to represent the mathematical concepts in the Wolfram Language. In fact, in several cases he mentions the traditional mathematical notation and follows it with the Wolfram Language notation. What's strange or arrogant or egotistical about this? Yes, he's the founder and CEO of the company that created the language, but that doesn't strike me as a problem. It's a good language for doing this sort of thing, and it's pretty clear that he's genuinely interested in both the mathematical concepts and how to create a programming language to represent them. This is hardly just content marketing blogspam.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoEvery single piece Wolfram writes, without exception, is arrogant content marketing blogspam. Even his books. Sometimes very clever, sometimes interesting (though I'd find him 1,000x more interesting if say 1 article in 10 made no mention of how clever he and Mathematica are); always arrogant and self-promotional. This piece is no exception - because it's Turing I made exception to my usual personal hard-ban on reading Wolfram. It's no exception to the above. It is, however, interesting despite being arrogant and self-promotional. If you asked Stephen Wolfram what time it was, he would be arrogant and self-promotional, and mention Mathematica at least as much as the time.
- twic 7y agoIf you follow the link to the obituary for Nicholas Kermack in the Eton Chronicle, then turn to the next page, you will see that at the time it was edited by Roger Clarke, who went on to be a film reviewer for The Independent, and also someone called Boris Johnson.
- sg0 7y agoSW has a tendency to describe features of a person which I find utterly fascinating (for eg: 'Turing used to giggle a lot', now compare that with the somber depiction of Turing in 'The Imitation Game'). In the write up on Ramanujam, SW mentions that he was stocky, apart from many personal tidbits.
- emmelaich 7y agoYou should read Andrew Hodges work "Alan Turing: The Enigma" on which "The Imitation Game" is allegedly partly based. The contrasts are striking.
- Upvoter33 7y ago"My own guess is that it was not suicide, but that’s a different story." What was this about, I wonder?
- lacker 7y agoTuring was gay and knew a lot of government secrets at a time when gay people were considered security risks and likely Communist sympathizers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_scare https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_scare I’m not an expert on the topic at all, but the story always seemed fishy to me. Who kills themself by injecting an apple with poison and eating an apple? (The JFK story also seems fishy to me because I don’t get why in the world Jack Ruby killed Oswald)
- palisade 7y agoRuby was under the delusion that the world would forgive him for it because everyone hated Oswald so much for having offed JFK. And, that he would be labeled a national hero.
- DonaldFisk 7y agoThere's some doubt. He did electroplating as a hobby for which he used potassium cyanide. He could have inhaled hydrogen cyanide fumes, or not washed his hands well enough before eating the apple. So it might have been accidental death.
- whenchamenia 7y agoHaving worked with similar chemicals, you tend not to get careless. I would wager a majority of cyanide injestions are not accidental. I think murder or suicide is much more likely, particularlly given the context.
- creepypeepy 7y agoSome folks here enjoy reading it but Wolfman is often out of line when putting his comments and twists in. It also displays a creepy nature of wolfman to want to know very personal things. Example, recording private phone calls and releasing them to the public or releasing those to lawyers when he feels they might serve his purpose. Creepy and borderline dangerous. But for the average Joe all this seems to be enjoyable.
- dang 7y agoPlease stop.
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- gfaure 7y agoI had no idea that Olivia Newton-John's grandfather was Max Born of the Born interpretation...
- MichaelMoser123 7y agoHe mentioned that Cambridge switched to four digit phone numbers in 1939. Where can one find out such things like that, where did they record and document it as a fact? I wonder if they still had manual operators or was that automatic switching? the link: [1] the first automatic switch was introduced in 1922; so they had the fascinating problem of interoperation between manual switched regions and automatic ones. So that Oxford might have had it either way. [1] https://www.btplc.com/Thegroup/BTsHistory/1912to1968/1922.htm https://www.btplc.com/Thegroup/BTsHistory/1912to1968/1922.ht...
- d--b 7y agoIt's nice to be Stephen Wolfram, people call you up to give you books owned by Alan Turing...