Alan Turing's Hidden Manuscripts Are Up For Auction
Alan Turing was a British mathematician who both broke the infamous Enigma code, enabling Britain to stay alive during WWII, and also the father of computer science and artificial intelligence. He's the reason why people have laboured for decades to beat the 'Turing Test', and also the reason why submarines didn't break the UK in 1942.
Sadly, he also lived in a country which, at the time, criminalized homosexuality, and ended up chemically castrated by the British government in 1952. He committed suicide two years later with a cyanide-laced apple.
Turing's life is superbly detailed in Andrew Hodges' book, Alan Turing: The Enigma, which is now also an Oscar-nominated biopic starring Benedict Cumberbatch. But actual material penned by Turing himself is hard to come by — hence the excitement surrounding the upcoming auction of one of this notebooks.
According to Bonhams, the famed London auction house responsible for the sale, the book is "a key handwritten scientific document by Alan Turing in which he works on the foundations of mathematical notation and computer science". It dates from 1942, during the heydey of Bletchley Park and the code-breaking efforts, but is more concerned with theoretical work than any application to cracking the Enigma code.
Since Turing's death, the notebook has been in the care of fellow mathematician Robin Gandy, who used the inside pages of the book as his dream diary, thinking that no-one would ever look too closely at the contents. Bonhams estimates the manuscript will sell for "at least seven figures", with a portion of the sale being donated to charity. [Bonhams]
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Sadly, he also lived in a country which, at the time, criminalized homosexuality, and ended up chemically castrated by the British government in 1952. He committed suicide two years later with a cyanide-laced apple.
Well that got dark. The movie should be pretty interesting.
The movie is amazing. But that time of his life isn't the main story of the film.
He realized that he was not dealing with actual people, but rather a social machine that was programmed and had a limited range of responses to unique stimuli. People are programmed differently nowadays, of course, though he still might be able to tell they weren't really human.
The movie was excellent for many reasons. You should really see it.
I thought this was a well-known fact that he killed himself because of the way the government treated him.
The movie is pretty interesting, definitely watch it.
I remember reading somewhere in The Guardian that Alan was actually quite charming and confident, despite being a homosexual in Britain at that time. But in "The Imitation Game" he was portrayed as having pretty severe autism ("the peas mustn't touch the carrots"; or, him admittedly not understanding the nuances of verbal language), and also as someone who would deliberately isolate himself socially.
Can anyone help satisfy my curiosity without me having to sift through wikipedia to find it myself?
Can anyone help satisfy my curiosity without me having to sift through wikipedia to find it myself?
Maybe this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imita...
Personally, and this is more of a problem with Cumberbatch, I felt more like I was watching "Sherlock Invents a Computer", this is probably entirely because I always look at Cumberbatch and just think Sherlock.
I haven't seen many movies with him but I feel like he wasn't acting any differently in The Imitation Game than he does in Sherlock.
Not to say either The Imitation Game or Sherlock are bad, just the way I see Cumberbatch at the moment, it didn't ruin the film for me, just made me feel differently about it. Also I recommend The Theory of Everything as well, the guy playing it really started to look like Stephen Hawking
Ha, maybe sifting through wikipedia wouldn't have taken that long after all. Thanks.
I agree with your point on Cumberbatch just playing Cumberbatch. I feel like, for me anyways, it's hard to see past the celebrity and get lost in a character once an actor reaches a certain level of fame. Mainstream hollywood movies are pretty much saturated by just a handful of actors. Christian Bale is always going to be Batman now, and Brad Pitt...well he's just always Brad Pitt.
Also, yes, the dude from The Theory of Everything looks insanely like Stephen Hawking.
I agree with your point on Cumberbatch just playing Cumberbatch. I feel like, for me anyways, it's hard to see past the celebrity and get lost in a character once an actor reaches a certain level of fame. Mainstream hollywood movies are pretty much saturated by just a handful of actors. Christian Bale is always going to be Batman now, and Brad Pitt...well he's just always Brad Pitt.
Also, yes, the dude from The Theory of Everything looks insanely like Stephen Hawking.
If that "charity" it's being donated to isn't something LGBT-related I'm gonna be pretty disappointed in the world.
Amazing movie. I really recommend it.
So how much did Tim Cook pay the producers of the film to take the apple business out of the movie?
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