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'Being persecuted' strikes me as a crummy reason to put someone on currency, it's more a sign of the times than a sign of gravitas.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
Turing was accomplished enough that I think he deserves the recognition even had he not ended up unjustly persecuted for his sexual orientation. I wish there was more focus in this discussion on Turing's incredible accomplishments and less on the lurid details surrounding his death. I'm fine with taking a stand to promote LGBTQ rights and left another comment here doing so, but I think it robs Turing of some of the respect he is due to frame the discussion here with an excess emphasis on his persecution.
kitd 7y ago
Strictly speaking, he didn't say it was. "Not recognized by society" in the present age is the thing these future awards atone for.
leggomylibro 7y ago
Turing was persecuted, but he was also instrumental to the Allies' victory in WWII. Without Bletchley Park and the massive advances in electromechanical computing that Turing helped to spearhead, the world would probably look very different today. It seems more like an acknowledgement that his past persecution shouldn't have any bearing on our perception of his myriad accomplishments. FTA: >Alan Turing provided the theoretical underpinnings for the modern computer. While best known for his work devising code-breaking machines during WWII, Turing played a pivotal role in the development of early computers first at the National Physical Laboratory and later at the University of Manchester. He set the foundations for work on artificial intelligence by considering the question of whether machines could think. I mean, we sometimes call general-purpose computers "Turing Machines", and we use "Turing Tests" to determine if an AI can demonstrate enough intelligence to pass as human. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test
- pavelrub 7y ago
  > Without Bletchley Park and the massive advances in electromechanical computing that Turing helped to spearhead, the world would probably look very different today. That's an unnecessary exaggeration. ULTRA was incredibly helpful to the Allies, but there is little reason to believe that without it the world "would probably look very different today". In all likelihood the worst scenario is that the war would've ended a bit later, and with somewhat more favourable conditions for the USSR in terms of their positions in Europe.
  - onei 7y ago
    If I recall, ULTRA played a non-trivial part in the Dunkirk landings by checking what the Nazis actually knew. Without that intelligence, it may not have succeeded and things could indeed look very different today. Moving on from that, one of the people behind ULTRA went on to develop what we would recognise today as the cloud. In terms of cryptography, ULTRA was classified for decades after as the techniques developed were still in use.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

Turing was accomplished enough that I think he deserves the recognition even had he not ended up unjustly persecuted for his sexual orientation. I wish there was more focus in this discussion on Turing's incredible accomplishments and less on the lurid details surrounding his death. I'm fine with taking a stand to promote LGBTQ rights and left another comment here doing so, but I think it robs Turing of some of the respect he is due to frame the discussion here with an excess emphasis on his persecution.

kitd 7y ago

Strictly speaking, he didn't say it was. "Not recognized by society" in the present age is the thing these future awards atone for.

leggomylibro 7y ago

Turing was persecuted, but he was also instrumental to the Allies' victory in WWII. Without Bletchley Park and the massive advances in electromechanical computing that Turing helped to spearhead, the world would probably look very different today. It seems more like an acknowledgement that his past persecution shouldn't have any bearing on our perception of his myriad accomplishments. FTA: >Alan Turing provided the theoretical underpinnings for the modern computer. While best known for his work devising code-breaking machines during WWII, Turing played a pivotal role in the development of early computers first at the National Physical Laboratory and later at the University of Manchester. He set the foundations for work on artificial intelligence by considering the question of whether machines could think. I mean, we sometimes call general-purpose computers "Turing Machines", and we use "Turing Tests" to determine if an AI can demonstrate enough intelligence to pass as human. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

pavelrub 7y ago
> Without Bletchley Park and the massive advances in electromechanical computing that Turing helped to spearhead, the world would probably look very different today. That's an unnecessary exaggeration. ULTRA was incredibly helpful to the Allies, but there is little reason to believe that without it the world "would probably look very different today". In all likelihood the worst scenario is that the war would've ended a bit later, and with somewhat more favourable conditions for the USSR in terms of their positions in Europe.
- onei 7y ago
  If I recall, ULTRA played a non-trivial part in the Dunkirk landings by checking what the Nazis actually knew. Without that intelligence, it may not have succeeded and things could indeed look very different today. Moving on from that, one of the people behind ULTRA went on to develop what we would recognise today as the cloud. In terms of cryptography, ULTRA was classified for decades after as the techniques developed were still in use.