Alan Turing (1912–1954) has been increasingly recognised as an important mathematician and philosopher who despite his short life developed ideas that today have led to foundational aspects of computer science and related fields. Some of Turing’s mathematics can be visualised in interesting and even artistic ways, aided using software. Early in his career he developed the foundational concept of what later became known as the Universal Turing Machine, a theoretical version of what is now implemented as a digital computer. Even Turing’s abstract concept of such a machine can generate interesting patterns. Towards the end of his life, Turing also worked on morphogenesis, literally “creation of shape” from the Greek-derived words morph and genesis. This is the biological process in which a living organism develops its shape and has become influential in bioinformatics. A significant corpus of the historical material related to Turing can now be accessed online through a number of major archives with digitised documents. More recently, Alan Turing had inspired creativity in the arts with output in media as diverse as books, film, music, painting, plays, and sculpture. This talk provides an overview of these diverse aspects related to Turing’s remarkable achievements. Although the story of Turing can be seen as one of tragedy, with his life cut short while still at the height of his intellectual powers, from a historical viewpoint Turing’s contribution to humankind has been triumphant.

1. Alan Turing
Prof. Jonathan P. Bowen
Emeritus Professor of Computing
London South Bank University (LSBU)
Currently Visiting Scholar at the
Institute for Advanced Studies (IIAS)
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Chairman, Museophile Limited
www.jpbowen.com
Virtuoso Visionary

2. Introduction
• Subjects: Mathematics, engineering, art,
computer science, software engineering,
museum informatics, history of computing
• Collaboration: Archivists, historians, library scientists,
mathematicians, museologists, philosophers, sociologists
• Academia: Imperial College (London), Oxford, Reading,
Birmingham City, London South Bank University
• Visitor: UNU-IIST (Macau), King’s College London, Brunel,
Westminster, Waikato (New Zealand), Pratt Institute (New
York, USA), Institute for Advanced Studies (Jerusalem)
• Industry: Marconi, Logica, Silicon Graphics, Altran Praxis
• EVA London Conference on
Electronic Visualisation & the Arts
(co-chair) www.eva-london.org

3. Overview
• Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS
(23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954)
• Mathematician, philosopher, codebreaker
• “Founder/father of computer science”
• Increasingly in the public consciousness
• Centenary meetings at Bletchley Park,
Cambridge, Manchester, Oxford,
etc., in 2012
• Mathematics can be visualised
• Digital archives of Turing material

4. Contributions to knowledge
• The Universal Machine (1936)
• Code-breaking (WW II)
• Computers and computing (1946)
• Artificial Intelligence (1950)
• Morphogenesis (1952)

5. Alan Turing:
The Enigma
Definitive biography
by Andrew Hodges,
Wadham College,
Oxford.
1st edition, 1983.
Centenary edition,
2012.

6. The Scientists:
An epic of discovery
• Andrew Robinson (ed.),
Thames & Hudson, 2012
• 43 scientists through history
• Includes Alan Turing
• And Einstein of course!
• How do they compare?

7. Einstein (a diversion!)
Institute for Advanced Studies,
Hebrew University
Einstein Archive
Albert Einstein Square
Garden of the Israel Academy of
Sciences and Humanities

8. Einstein
New 2015 sculpture on Givat Ram campus

9. Einstein’s Blackboard, Oxford
“If we knew what it was we
were doing, it would not be
called research, would it?”
– Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
Bust in
Birmingham
Museum and
Art Gallery
Blackboard in the
Museum of the History
of Science, Oxford
(lecture in Oxford on
16 May 1931)
Turing is not known to
have visited Oxford!

10. Turing’s Worlds (23–24 June 2012)
Dept. of Continuing Education, Oxford University
Authors in The Turing Guide

11. • Cake at Oxford centenary meeting.
Happy Birthday Alan Turing! (2012)

12. The Turing Guide
A collected set of 42 chapters on
Alan Turing. Co-editors:
• Jonathan Bowen (London South Bank University,
England) – computer scientist (at IIAS)
• Jack Copeland (University of Canterbury,
New Zealand) – philosopher (at IIAS)
• Mark Sprevak (University of Edinburgh, Scotland)
– philosopher
• Robin Wilson (Open University /
Oxford University, England) – mathematician

13. Table of Contents
• Foreword by Andrew Hodges
• Preface by the editors
• Eight parts
• Notes and references
• Notes on contributors
• Index

14. Table of Contents – parts
I. Biography
II. The Universal Machine and Beyond
III. Codebreaker
IV. Computers after the War
V. Artificial Intelligence and the Mind
VI. Biological Growth
VII. Mathematics
VIII. Finale

15. 1. Life and work
• Jonathan P. Bowen, Jack Copeland,
Mark Sprevak, and Robin J. Wilson
• Biography
Born at Colonnade Hotel
Maida Vale, London, 1912
Died at home in Wilmslow,
Cheshire, 1954

16. Southampton to Sherborne
Arrival at new school: Bicycle ride during
the General Strike, 1926 (aged 14)
Stayed at the Crown Hotel, Blandford Forum
Inspired by school
friend Christopher
Morcom (died
February 1930)
when Turing was 17
Turing read and
understood
Einstein aged 16

17. Turing at Princeton
• Enrolled
29 September 1936
• Dissertation accepted
18 May 1938

18. Turing at Princeton Turing’s
record
of study
Studied the
Theory of
Relativity
under
Howard P.
Robertson
(1903–1961)
Robertson met
Einstein, Hilbert,
etc., in Göttingen,
Germany

19. 2. The man with the terrible trousers
• Sir John Dermot Turing
– nephew of Alan Turing
• A person view
• Author of Prof: Alan Turing Decoded
(September 2015) At an exhibition on Alan Turing
at Bletchley Park, 2012

20. 5. A century of Turing
• Stephen Wolfram
• Wolfram Research
• Mathematica
– “birthday” (23 June 1988)
• Based on a blog
• Personal view
Turing Machine
visualisation
Mathematica program:
ArrayPlot [Function
[u, MapAt [Red &,
u[[2]], u[[1, 2]]]] /
@TuringMachine
[2506,{1, {{}, 0}, 50]]

21. 6. Turing’s great invention:
The computing machine
• Jack Copeland – the “Turing machine”
An implementation of a Turing machine

22. 9. At
Bletchley Park
• Jack Copeland
• Enigma, etc.
Cottages in the
stable yard where
Turing did early
work on Enigma
Hut 8
used
by
Turing

23. 10. The Enigma machine
• Joel Greenberg
• Guide at Bletchey Park
• Author of Gordon Welchman:
Bletchley Park's Architect of
Ultra Intelligence biography
(2014)

24. 12. Bombes
• Jack Copeland, with Jean Valentine and
Catherine Caughey
• Electromechanical deciphering device
• Design by Turing et al. (1939)
• Bombe reconstruction at Bletchley Park
Jean Valentine, Bombe operator, latterly a guide at Bletchley Park

25. Banburismus and Turingery
• Banburismus: a cryptographic method
developed by Turing for Enigma (Bombe
pre-processing)
• Turingery (aka Turing's Method and
Turingismus) for breaking the Lorenz
cipher
Cf.
BlackBerry
today

26. 20. Saving Bletchley Park
• Simon Greenish and Jonathan Bowen
• Former Director
• Recent history of Bletchley Park
• Now safe (National Lottery funding)

27. 21. Turing, Lovelace, and
Babbage: congruent worlds
• Doron Swade, formerly computing
curator at the Science Museum, London
• Comparing Turing’s achievement with
Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace
• Analytical Engine

28. Ada Lovelace (1815–1852)
• First “programmer” – 200th anniversary of
Ada Lovelace’s birth, 10 December 2015
• Died aged 36 (cf. Turing at 41)
• Symposium in Oxford, 10–11 December 2015
• Exhibitions at Weston Library, Oxford
& Science Museum, London
• Letters in Bodleian Library, Oxford
Digitisation project
in progress at the
Bodleian

29. The ACE computer
• Turing at National Physical Laboratory, 1945–47
• Automatic Computing Engine (ACE),
originally designed by Turing, 1946
• Smaller Pilot ACE finally implemented, 1950
• Now in the Science
Museum, London

30. 23. The Manchester Baby
• Jack Copeland
• Manchester Mark I
computer, June 1948
• Turing appointed Reader
– worked on software
Alan Turing on
the right standing
at the console of
the Manchester
Ferranti
computer.

31. 24. Computer music
• Jack Copeland and Jason Long
• Foreseen by Ada Lovelace
• First recorded computer music
(God Save the King, Baa Baa Black Sheep, &
In the Mood, 1951!)
• Ferranti Mark 1 computer at Manchester
Programmed by Christopher Strachey (1916–1975),
later first head of the Programming Research Group,
Oxford, and colleague of Turing
Alan Turing (right) at the
console of the Ferranti Mark 1

32. 31. Child machines
• Diane Proudfoot (at IIAS)
• The Turing Test
• Educable machines
• Social intelligence
“On the Internet, nobody knows
you’re a dog.” – New Yorker

33. Thought
“... at the end of the [20th] century,
... one will be able to speak of
machines thinking without
expecting to be contradicted.”
– Alan Turing
Awarded Fellowship of the Royal Society
(FRS), 1951.

34. Morphogenesis
• The "beginning of the shape” –
biological process, patterns
• Turing not completely correct,
but close enough
• Cf. chaos theory
Turing, A.M. (1952). “The Chemical
Basis of Morphogenesis”. Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society B:
Biological Sciences, 237(641):37–64.
doi:10.1098/rstb.1952.0012
A diagram from
Turing's notes on
morphogenesis

35. 35. Turing’s theory of
morphogenisis
• Thomas E. Woolley, Ruth
Baker, and Philip Maini
Centre for Mathematical Biology
Mathematical Institute
University of Oxford
• Earlier title: “All models are
wrong, but some are useful”
• Turing was not completely
correct, but close enough

36. 36. Radiolaria: Validating
the Turing theory
• Bernard Richards, University of Manchester
• Last masters student under Turing in 1953
• Protozoa with complex mineral skeletons
On Alan Turing: “The
day he died felt like
driving through a
tunnel and the lights
being switched off.”

37. Bernard Richards – Masters thesis
• Figures

38. Bernard Richards – Masters thesis
• Figures

39. Bernard Richards – Masters thesis
• Figures

40. Bernard Richards – Masters thesis
• Figures

41. Visualized
morphogenesis
2009
Visualization
Challenge
Science
journal cover
(19 February 2010)

42. 41. Is the whole universe
computable?
• Jack Copeland, Oron Shagrir (at IIAS),
Mark Sprevak
Chapter still being written!

43. 42. Turing’s legacy
• Jonathan Bowen
• Scientific legacy
• Turing and modern society
• Turing papers – auction
• Government pardon
• Public consciousness
• Google donation to
Bletchly Park

44. Epitaph
“A sort of scientific Shelley.”
– Sir Geoffrey Jefferson FRS (1886–1961)
Professor of Neurosurgery at Manchester
Shelley Memorial,
University College,
Oxford

45. Epilogue
• ACM Turing Award, first
awarded 1966
• Increasing public consciousness
• Government apology/pardon
• Turing papers: auctions
• Google donation to
Bletchley Park

46. Bletchley Park – now
• Heritage site
• Bombe and Colossus reconstructions
• National Museum of Computing
• Now safe, although needs further funding

47. Memorials
• E.g., slate statue
at Bletchley Park
by Stephen Kettle
• Also statue in
Manchester

48. Alan Turing
exhibition at the
Science Museum
(2012)
Even Alan Turing Monopoly!
(2012 special edition)

49. Alan Turing – online archives
• Centenary year in 2012
– www.turingcentenary.eu
• Andrew Hodges (Turing biographer)
– www.turing.org.uk
• Jack Copeland’s Turing Archive (facsimiles)
– www.alanturing.net
• The Turing Digital Archive (3,000 images)
– King’s College, Cambridge
– www.turingarchive.org
• Wikimedia Commons (freely available)
– commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

50. Turing.org.uk
Additionalmaterialto
Turing’sdefinitivebiography

51. AlanTuring.net
Collected set of facsimiles by two academics (currently at IIAS)

52. TuringArchive.org
Archive at
King’s College,
Cambridge
(Turing’s
College)

53. Pet Shop Boys – Proms
• Royal Albert Hall, London, 23 July 2014
• World premiere of “A Man from the Future”
• Tribute to Alan Turing

54. The Imitation Game
(2014 film)
Historical drama film on the life of Alan
Turing, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and
Keira Knightley (based on the biography Alan
Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges).
Filming at
King’s Cross
Station, London
October 2013

55. Stephen Fry
“Turing was a genius who helped
shorten the war though his extraordinary
solutions to the Enigma and Tunny code
machines that the Germans were using
... We owe him a huge debt.”

56. Alan Turing (1912–1954)
• “Father of computer science”
• Universal Turing machine
• Cryptography (decryption at Bletchley Park)
• Artificial intelligence and morphogenesis

57. Alan Turing and Albert Einstein
• Southwest University, Chongqing, China
• Are Turing and Einstein on a par?
Arguably yes,
but Einstein has
a head start!
Chongqing means
“double celebration”
(aptly) in Chinese
Both generally
accepted as
geniuses

58. Einstein in Oxford – again!
Free talk at Christ Church,
3 December 2015
Einstein book published by
Princeton University Press
Honorary degree, 1930s

59. The Turing Guide
• Book due in 2016
• To be published by Oxford University Press
• Hard cover, paperback, and e-book
• Edited by Jack Copeland, Jonathan Bowen, Mark
Sprevak, and Robin Wilson
• 42 chapters by contributors largely from Oxford,
Cambridge, Bletchley Park meetings
• Sabbatical at the Institute for Advanced Studies in
Jerusalem to complete the book!
• See also Gresham College, London, talk:
www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/alan-turing-the-founder-of-computer-science

60. The Turing
Guide
Likely front cover
picture – new
portrait of Turing
Note the terrible trousers!

61. Thank you
Alan Turing
founder/father of
computer science
Prof. Jonathan Bowen
FBCS, FRSA
jonathan.bowen@lsbu.ac.uk
www.jpbowen.com
The Turing Guide (OUP, 2016)

62. EVA London www.eva-london.org

63. AlanTuring
warholize.me