7 ms·

I've been saying for a while that Turing's premature death set back mathematics by years, if not decades. :( Discrimination still happens to a large enough deg

by rw 17y ago

I've been saying for a while that Turing's premature death set back mathematics by years, if not decades. :( Discrimination still happens to a large enough degree (gender, race and class) that we're shooting ourselves collectively in the foot by not enabling people to contribute as much to society as they are able.

arithmetic 17y ago
This apology was long overdue. I'm glad that Britain finally came out with it.
pbhjpbhj 17y ago
Complete speculation but it's possible that, being Freudian for a moment, the childhood loss and trauma that led Turing to pick-up teenage boys for casual sex was the driving force that pushed him to pursue mathematics to such a degree.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  I really have a hard time trying to understand how you can even begin to reach such a conclusion. Turing was already well underway to become a very special person indeed long before that happened, his mathematical and scientific skills were beyond dispute at a very young age. A quote from the wikipedia article on Alan Turing: "Despite this, Turing continued to show remarkable ability in the studies he loved, solving advanced problems in 1927 without having even studied elementary calculus. In 1928, aged 16, Turing encountered Albert Einstein's work; not only did he grasp it, but he extrapolated Einstein's questioning of Newton's laws of motion from a text in which this was never made explicit"
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    It's quite common, particularly long after the fact, for teachers to say things like "of course we knew he was special". The Turing Scrapbook, which is at least partially biased in favour of Turing as a demi-god(!), makes no claims as to Turing being notably gifted as a child; indeed mentioning he was nearly stopped from doing his exams. He was certainly a gifted child but his exceptional mathematical abilities only appear to have really taken root during his University career.
- seldo 17y ago
  What "childhood loss and trauma" was it that led Turing to find nineteen-year-olds attractive, exactly? I'm pretty sure most people find people in their late teens and early 20s attractive. Complete speculation here, but your use of "boys" makes it sound like you conflate Turing's actions with paedophilia. The ongoing and statistically inaccurate association of homosexuality with paedophilia is one of the reasons public actions like this one affirming that one can be both homosexual and legally and morally respectable are still necessary.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    The reference to Turings childhood loss was to Chris Morcom, the first person Alan Turing fell in love with while at school. But Turing was already recognized as quite gifted at that time. It is possible, but not proven that because Morcom was slightly older he might have pulled Alan Turing along in his slipstream. I just found this: http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/scrapbook/spirit.html http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/scrapbook/spirit.html From which I gather it influenced his views on religion strongly but it didn't detract from his other work.
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    Most sexual relationships, feel free to prove me wrong, don't have a 20+ year age gap. Sorry but in my locality teenagers (yes 19 is teenaged) are referred to as "teenage boys" (as opposed to teenage girls, boys being a male descriptor) or "youths" as well as "young men". The large age gap brought to mind the pederastic (not necessarily paedophilic) relationships of Greece BCE - Socrates apparently railed against older men consumating such relationships. Morcom's death appears to have been a pivotal moment in Turings formative years - my Freudian speculation was that Turings attraction to younger men, teenagers, could have been an attempt to chase the relationship of his youth that ended so abruptly; much as middle-age men are want to chase younger women as an attempt to recapture their youth. It also seems right that having left his parents and arrived in bording school only to have his only real friend taken from him by death could well have spurred Turing on into his studies whilst social success may have led him to fritter away his gifts, ignore his studies and follow more worldy pursuits.
    - 17y ago
- noodle 17y ago
  just so we're clear here, "teenaged boys" is (was?), in reality, men of legal age. he was convicted of a crime because he admitted to being a homosexual, stripped of his security clearance, and chemically castrated. he was not a pedophile, as the parent seems to be implying.
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    Apropos of nothing the age of consent in the UK for homosexuals was 21 until 1994 I think - your first clause is a little weird perhaps you mean "men of majority, adults". Turing chose chemical castration in preference to prison (I think the term would have been 2 years). Given his knowledge of biology and chemistry and that people on-line have told me he was open about his homosexual preference (which is doubtful given his fiancée didn't know until after they were engaged despite working with him and knowing him intimately outside of work), anyway given those two points why didn't he choose prison? He was convicted of a crime because he admitted to performing acts which were illegal - (at least after and probably before 1954 IIRC) it was also illegal to bugger anyone (or animal!) and an admission of that would have presumably led him to the same sentence (according to the statute), loss of clearance and job the only difference being he wouldn't of been offered hormone therapy ("organo-therapy")as an alternative. Unrelated but I also only just found out that he is Alan M Turing OBE FRS having been honoured by the Queen for his war efforts and made a Fellow for his maths accomplishments. The recent news made me think he'd been blanked.
- wlievens 17y ago
  How come I can'd downvote this any further?
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    I was bullied at school, it lead to me achieving better grades. Is it such an unreasonable consideration that being rejected by society (even the society of Kings that would have been more than open to homosexuals) would lead one to focus attention on more ethereal pursuits?
    - wlievens 17y ago
      Not at all unreasonable, but your comment sounded like "LOL PEDO FAG GOT WHAT HE HAD COMIN'". I wasn't alone with that interpretation.
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
ninguem2 17y ago
>I've been saying for a while that Turing's premature death set back mathematics by years, if not decades. :( That, as the British say, is utter bollocks. His contributions to Mathematics were done before the war. Plus he was pass 40 when he died...

by rw 17y ago

arithmetic 17y ago

This apology was long overdue. I'm glad that Britain finally came out with it.

pbhjpbhj 17y ago

Complete speculation but it's possible that, being Freudian for a moment, the childhood loss and trauma that led Turing to pick-up teenage boys for casual sex was the driving force that pushed him to pursue mathematics to such a degree.

jacquesm 17y ago
I really have a hard time trying to understand how you can even begin to reach such a conclusion. Turing was already well underway to become a very special person indeed long before that happened, his mathematical and scientific skills were beyond dispute at a very young age. A quote from the wikipedia article on Alan Turing: "Despite this, Turing continued to show remarkable ability in the studies he loved, solving advanced problems in 1927 without having even studied elementary calculus. In 1928, aged 16, Turing encountered Albert Einstein's work; not only did he grasp it, but he extrapolated Einstein's questioning of Newton's laws of motion from a text in which this was never made explicit"
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  It's quite common, particularly long after the fact, for teachers to say things like "of course we knew he was special". The Turing Scrapbook, which is at least partially biased in favour of Turing as a demi-god(!), makes no claims as to Turing being notably gifted as a child; indeed mentioning he was nearly stopped from doing his exams. He was certainly a gifted child but his exceptional mathematical abilities only appear to have really taken root during his University career.
seldo 17y ago
What "childhood loss and trauma" was it that led Turing to find nineteen-year-olds attractive, exactly? I'm pretty sure most people find people in their late teens and early 20s attractive. Complete speculation here, but your use of "boys" makes it sound like you conflate Turing's actions with paedophilia. The ongoing and statistically inaccurate association of homosexuality with paedophilia is one of the reasons public actions like this one affirming that one can be both homosexual and legally and morally respectable are still necessary.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  The reference to Turings childhood loss was to Chris Morcom, the first person Alan Turing fell in love with while at school. But Turing was already recognized as quite gifted at that time. It is possible, but not proven that because Morcom was slightly older he might have pulled Alan Turing along in his slipstream. I just found this: http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/scrapbook/spirit.html http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/scrapbook/spirit.html From which I gather it influenced his views on religion strongly but it didn't detract from his other work.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  Most sexual relationships, feel free to prove me wrong, don't have a 20+ year age gap. Sorry but in my locality teenagers (yes 19 is teenaged) are referred to as "teenage boys" (as opposed to teenage girls, boys being a male descriptor) or "youths" as well as "young men". The large age gap brought to mind the pederastic (not necessarily paedophilic) relationships of Greece BCE - Socrates apparently railed against older men consumating such relationships. Morcom's death appears to have been a pivotal moment in Turings formative years - my Freudian speculation was that Turings attraction to younger men, teenagers, could have been an attempt to chase the relationship of his youth that ended so abruptly; much as middle-age men are want to chase younger women as an attempt to recapture their youth. It also seems right that having left his parents and arrived in bording school only to have his only real friend taken from him by death could well have spurred Turing on into his studies whilst social success may have led him to fritter away his gifts, ignore his studies and follow more worldy pursuits.
  - 17y ago
noodle 17y ago
just so we're clear here, "teenaged boys" is (was?), in reality, men of legal age. he was convicted of a crime because he admitted to being a homosexual, stripped of his security clearance, and chemically castrated. he was not a pedophile, as the parent seems to be implying.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  Apropos of nothing the age of consent in the UK for homosexuals was 21 until 1994 I think - your first clause is a little weird perhaps you mean "men of majority, adults". Turing chose chemical castration in preference to prison (I think the term would have been 2 years). Given his knowledge of biology and chemistry and that people on-line have told me he was open about his homosexual preference (which is doubtful given his fiancée didn't know until after they were engaged despite working with him and knowing him intimately outside of work), anyway given those two points why didn't he choose prison? He was convicted of a crime because he admitted to performing acts which were illegal - (at least after and probably before 1954 IIRC) it was also illegal to bugger anyone (or animal!) and an admission of that would have presumably led him to the same sentence (according to the statute), loss of clearance and job the only difference being he wouldn't of been offered hormone therapy ("organo-therapy")as an alternative. Unrelated but I also only just found out that he is Alan M Turing OBE FRS having been honoured by the Queen for his war efforts and made a Fellow for his maths accomplishments. The recent news made me think he'd been blanked.
wlievens 17y ago
How come I can'd downvote this any further?
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  I was bullied at school, it lead to me achieving better grades. Is it such an unreasonable consideration that being rejected by society (even the society of Kings that would have been more than open to homosexuals) would lead one to focus attention on more ethereal pursuits?
  - wlievens 17y ago
    Not at all unreasonable, but your comment sounded like "LOL PEDO FAG GOT WHAT HE HAD COMIN'". I wasn't alone with that interpretation.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]

ninguem2 17y ago

>I've been saying for a while that Turing's premature death set back mathematics by years, if not decades. :( That, as the British say, is utter bollocks. His contributions to Mathematics were done before the war. Plus he was pass 40 when he died...