Alan Turing Research Paper

Currently, computers are used for everything in life. For example, from researching for a large essay project to playing video games with friends. “From the outset, computers were weighed for both military and commercial significance, and hence they straddled the very institutional boundaries that central to this study. It is also significant that computers became valuable research instruments in nearly all disciplines.” (Akera, 2). The first digital computer was constructed in 1946 by John Mauchly, a professor, and Presper Eckert, an inventor. “They met by chance in 1941 at the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Engineering. They soon developed a revolutionary vision: to use electricity as a means of computing--in other words, to make electricity "think."” (McCartney, 1). They were ignored by their colleagues, but in 1943 they were becoming more well known and was funded by the U.S Army. The U.S Army was seeking for a contraption that can quickly calculate ballistic missile trajectories in wartime Europe and Africa (McCartney, 1). John Mauchly and Presper Eckert led a team that constructed the computer that occupied 1,800 square feet and weighed thirty tons. They named the large computer, ENIAC, Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer. The process of building this machine was not an effortless task, Mauchly and Presper and their team had to overcome many problems

     The Turing Test has had a rich history since its creation by Alan Turing. But first of all, who was Alan Turing? As Whitby notes Alan Turing was a superb British mathematician. During World War II Turing worked in secrecy for the British military to break the German military codes together with some other scientists using some machines that had some characteristics of the modern computers.(12) After the War, a machine was built in Manchester from which “all modern computers are descended”.(12) In 1948, Alan Turing was writing programs for this machine and was also writing the paper “Computing machinery and intelligence”, published in 1950, from which the concept of the Turing Test was derived later on. (Whitby 13).

The origin of the computer resides with the military. The computer itself was created by the military during the Cold War era, when we were in a technological race with Russia. This race was the fuel for massive advancements in technology especially in the sector of computer intelligence. The first Computer’s were physically large enough to fill an entire room. They were used to manage large quantities of data in textual and numerical form. The government backed certain research facilities in the advancement of the computer and some investigated and experimented in computer technology with art and music. 1

Today, the Turing Bombe is not used by the military, yet the machine inspires and reminds of the importance of sciences as World War II was won with the help of the scientific community. Now, the machines are exposed in the British Museum and are part of history. Soldiers and scientific community fought against the Nazis. After World War II, Alan Turing continued to devote himself for his passion of sciences, cryptanalysis, and computers. For instance, Turing is known as the father-creator of computers as in 1941, he designed the Colossus computer (Notes). In addition, he is recognized as an important figure in the scientific community and contributed largely to everyone’s lives, as computers are indispensable in today’s generation.

Although the idea of the computer had developed, the first digital computer, the Colossus, was used in World War II in England to crack into Hitler’s codes to break an electronic code to discover the German’s war plans in 1944. This would eventually evolve into technology that would become the Personal Computers (PC) and begin the age of the Computer and online connection (The Colossus Gallery).

After receiving his doctorate in 1938, Alan Turing returned to Cambridge, England and took a part-time position at a British code-breaking organization known as the “Government Code and Cypher School”. Whenever the Second World War broke out, Alan Turing was one of the leading participants in code-breaking against the axis powers (Turing would try to break the code of German ciphers in particular). During his time at Bletchley Park, the Government Code and Cypher School wartime station, Alan Turing broke the German’s Enigma Machine”, a machine that would transmit secret Nazi information that only the Germans could read. In addition to this, Alan Turing would go on to make an experiment called a “Turing Test” that was made to see whether or not machinery developed artificial

“In March 1952, Turing was charged with indecency for acknowledging a homosexual relationship, which was illegal in Britain at that time.” Turing pleaded guilty and was convicted of a choice of probation on the condition that he underwent one year of hormonal therapy to decrease his libido. Soon after, Turing died at the age of 41, on June 7th, 1954, in Wilmslow, Cheshire, England. “The cause of death was cyanide poisoning, according to the post-mortem examination. A half-eaten apple was found near his body (he had a fascination with the plot of the fairytale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) and, because it had been suspected that his sudden death was not accidental, the coroner held an inquest which confirmed that he had committed suicide.”

The well-known theory of the Berlin aesthetic theorist Friedrich Kittler was necessary for the development of the computer. The first computer was called “Colossus” and was used for military purposes. Another technological invention was the “ATM” and it was set out during the 1960’s but invented in the 1940’s. The computer when it was originally invented was used for deciphering Nazi enigma codes to try and figure out what the codes were trying to get out to the other Nazis. The computer worked very well with the enigma codes and it was one of the reasons that we won the war; the fact that we could basically listen in on the Nazi’s communications. The maker of the computer, Konrad Zuse, had intended the computer to be made for civilian use at first, but then the first computer ended up being used for the military

Tim Berners-Lee had a pretty normal childhood. He had three siblings, two parents, and lived in London, England. But inside his little household, were some pretty big brains. Both of his parents were mathematical geniuses, and that really encouraged him to do well in school. And, even at a young age, he was fascinated by electronics and mathematics. Little did he know that later in his life, those skills would really help him.

He is known for his contributions to the artificial intelligence and computer science community before it even existed. He is most known for what is now called the "Turing Test" and that is a process of testing an computer's ability to make its own decisions or "think" so to say. A little bit more information on Turing's life is that he dominated the world of technology of the twentieth century and he

The idea of computers, the way we think of them today, began with the Colossus in 1943. This British system was used in code-breaking during the duration of the war.

Stephen Hawking was a theoretical physicist who was, and continues to be a leader in his field even after his death. Born on January 8th 1942, Hawking began his career at the age of 17 at the University of Oxford. He then proceeded to attend the University of Cambridge where he would apply Roger Penrose’s theorem of a spacetime singularity in the centre of black holes to the entire universe which is known as the Big Bang. At the young age of 21, Hawking was diagnosed with a rare early onset slow progressing disease knows as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s and was given two years to live. He had three children with his first wife Jane Wilde including Lucy Hawking. Furthermore, Hawking is also well known for his best seller A Brief History of Time.

　　The key period of the evolution of modern electronic computer is in between the late 1930s and the early 1950s. Not all of them were invented by the mathematician or physician. Among those machines were pioneering computers put together by english academics notably Manchester/Ferrenti Mark 1, built at Manchester University by Frederic Williams and Thomas Kilburn. And the EDSAC, Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator built by Maurice Wilkes at Cambridge University.

Morten Tyldum, the director of the film, explains that what caused him taking up on this project was the fact that “[Alan] did all these amazing things, and he’s in the shadows of history. It’s all because he has this shameful ending as a gay man, where he’s ridiculed and his work suffered” (Castillo, Monica). If it were not for Turing, laptops, ipads, and other forms of technology would not have existed without the concept of computer science, and it definitely would not have been as advanced as it is today. On a side note, Alan Turing had cracked the Enigma with the help of another mathematician, Gordan Welchman, but cracked Germany’s naval Enigma single handedly (Hodges, Andrew). In effect, this shortened the war by two years, which in turn saved millions of people’s

“The word "computer" was first recorded as being used in 1613 and was originally was used to describe a human who performed calculations or computations” (Computer Hope). The first mechanical computer was invented back in the early 1800’s by “Charles Babbage” (Computer Hope). The “Difference Engine, considered to be the first automatic computing engine that was capable of computing several sets of numbers and making hard copies of the results” (Computer Hope). In modern terms it was nothing more than a calculator with a paper roll.