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Bletchley Park

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Bletchley Park. Bletchley Park: Home of the Codebreakers - Google Cultural Institute. Sharing stories of Bletchley Park: home of the code-breakers. For decades, the World War II codebreaking centre at Bletchley Park was one of the U.K.’s most closely guarded secrets. Today, it’s a poignant place to visit and reflect on the achievements of those who worked there. Their outstanding feats of intellect, coupled with breakthrough engineering and dogged determination, were crucial to the Allied victory—and in parallel, helped kickstart the computing age.

We’ve long been keen to help preserve and promote the importance of Bletchley Park. Today we’re announcing two new initiatives that we hope will bring its story to a wider online audience. First, we’re welcoming the Bletchley Park Trust as the latest partner to join Google’s Cultural Institute. Their digital exhibit features material from Bletchley’s archives, providing a vivid snapshot of the work that went on cracking secret messages and the role this played in shortening the war. We hope you enjoy learning more about Bletchley Park and its fundamental wartime role and legacy. Show 39 – First broadcast 6th Feb 2009 « The Sound of Science. This week’s programme is devoted entirely to the fascinating story of W. Grey Walter (1910-1977) a great British Scientist: psychologist-neurophysiologist-roboticist-social commentator-TV celebrity.

Our focus on Grey Walter is on his amazing futuristic robots. He was far ahead of his time. Apart from a couple of simple predecessors, Grey Walter designed and built the first fully autonomous tortoise robots that could seek light, avoid obstacles and return to their hutchs to automatically recharge. I have long known about his work and this is my journey of discovery to learn about what was behind the man and to find one of the robots in the flesh. The journey was helped by a number of interviewees who probably know more about Grey Walter than anyone else.

Professor Rod Brooks from MIT founder of iRobots and widely held to be the father of modern Behaviour Based Robots. Professor Richard Gregory FRS, Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology, University of Bristol. Dr. Music on the show. The Enigma Code Engine Reproduced. The Turing Test. First published Wed Apr 9, 2003; substantive revision Wed Jan 26, 2011 The phrase “The Turing Test” is most properly used to refer to a proposal made by Turing (1950) as a way of dealing with the question whether machines can think.

According to Turing, the question whether machines can think is itself “too meaningless” to deserve discussion (442). However, if we consider the more precise—and somehow related—question whether a digital computer can do well in a certain kind of game that Turing describes (“The Imitation Game”), then—at least in Turing's eyes—we do have a question that admits of precise discussion. Moreover, as we shall see, Turing himself thought that it would not be too long before we did have digital computers that could “do well” in the Imitation Game. The phrase “The Turing Test” is sometimes used more generally to refer to some kinds of behavioural tests for the presence of mind, or thought, or intelligence in putatively minded entities. 1. 2. Room for Doubt: Turing's Revolution.

In my post Alan Turing Year, I discussed how it's important for people to be aware of Turing's intellectual contributions to math and computer science, as well as his war efforts and tragic death. It's time to live up to my own call and do my part. In this post I'll talk about Turing's impact, from his best known contributions to his lesser known, but important ones. I should note that the content of this post is largely stolen from answers to a question I asked on the StackExchange (SE) cstheory site, where I sought to gather a compendium of Turing's less known results. The answers made a collection of impressive contributions, some of which I wasn't familiar with. Some of his contributions turned out to be surprisingly modern. Without further ado, here they are: 1.

A Lego Turing Machine, photo from wikipedia 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. The Bombe, from 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Deep Blue, photo form wikipedia 12. 13. 14. I'm sure there are more. Could Alan Turing be pardoned before the end of the Centenary? - Statistics Views. Since a letter calling for the posthumous pardon of mathematician Alan Turing was published in the Daily Telegraph’s edition of 14th December, further leading scientists have been lending their names to the appeal that was written by Professor Stephen Hawking, amongst others and the legalities are being seriously examined. In the letter, the scientists appeal, ‘We urge the Prime Minister formally to forgive this British hero, to whom we owe so much as a nation, and whose pioneering contribution to computer sciences remains relevant even today. To those who seek to block attempts to secure a pardon with the argument that this would set a precedent, we would answer that Turing’s achievements are sui generis.

It is time his reputation is unblemished’ (Daily Telegraph, 14th December 2012). Alan Turing led the code-breakers at Bletchley Park during World War II to break the codes of the Enigma machines. Let’s see if the Prime Minsister is feeling generous this Christmas. Soft question - Alan Turing's Contributions to Computer Science - Theoretical Computer Science. As mentioned in the question, Turing was central to defining algorithms and computability, thus he was one of the people that helped assemble the algorithmic lens. However, I think his biggest contribution was viewing science through the algorithmic lens and not just computation for the sake of computation. During WW2 Turing used the idea of computation and electro-mechanical (as opposed to human) computers to help create the Turing–Welchman bombe and other tools and formal techniques for doing crypto-analysis.

He started the transformation of cryptology, the art-form, to cryptography, the science, that Claude Shannon completed. Alan Turing viewed cryptology through algorithmic lenses. In 1948, Turing followed his interested in the brain, to create the first learning artificial neural network. Unfortunately his manuscript was rejected by the director of the NPL and not published (until 1967). In 1950, Turing published his famous Computing machinery and intelligence and launched AI. Codebreaker Challenge. Hacking. Crypto Corner - Home. Work begins on hardware to aid Edsac replica recreation. 9 January 2013Last updated at 02:56 ET By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News The pioneering Edsac computer is being recreated by engineers Plans to rebuild the pioneering Edsac computer are a step closer to completion as parts that will form its metal chassis start to be manufactured.

Edsac - Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator - ran its first program in 1949 and was created to help scientists at Cambridge University. The rebuild project started in 2011 after it was found that few of the original design documents remained. Project workers hope to have the recreated machine finished by 2015. "In many ways, and people do not realise this, Edsac was the beginning of the computer age," said Hermann Hauser, who kicked off the whole project and made the first substantial donation towards the £250,000 needed to complete the rebuild. Cash has also come from Google and other anonymous donors. Big thinking. Wren in famous picture has died | The National Museum of Computing.

Dorothy Du Boisson MBE, the Wren on the left in the famous photograph of Colossus, passed away last month, aged 93. Miss Du Boisson was part of the Newmanry from June 1943 until the end of the war and we believe that she worked on both Tunny and Colossus, distributing tapes for the machines. She visited TNMOC last September to have her photograph taken once again -- this time in front of the Rebuilt Colossus. Her friends in Brighton, where she lived in her later years, said they did not learn the extent of her contribution to the team at Bletchley Park until after her death: "With typical modesty she had played down her role as largely administrative... During her life, she made no mention of the MBE she later received for services to the Ministry of Defence. " The Brighton Argus reported her nephew Richard Du Boisson as saying: "She never let on she had an MBE and would just say, ‘oh everyone was talented’.

" Prize Home Page. What is the Loebner Prize? The Loebner Prize for artificial intelligence ( AI ) is the first formal instantiation of a Turing Test. The test is named after Alan Turing the brilliant British mathematician. Among his many accomplishments was basic research in computing science. In 1950, in the article Computing Machinery and Intelligence which appeared in the philosophy journal Mind, Alan Turing asked the question "Can a Machine Think?

" He answered in the affirmative, but a central question was: "If a computer could think, how could we tell? " Turing's suggestion was, that if the responses from the computer were indistinguishable from that of a human,the computer could be said to be thinking. This field is generally known as natural language processing. In 1990 Hugh Loebner agreed with The Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies to underwrite a contest designed to implement the Turing Test. For a comprehensive overview of chatbots in general, check chatbots.org. Bletchley’s forgotten heroes. Cracking the code that went between Enigma machines has made Alan Turing a household name. An exhibition about him at the Science Museum in London runs until next June; the campaign to pardon his conviction for homosexuality in 1952 (or gross indecency, as it was called) gathers pace; and his face is a favourite for inclusion on the next £10 note. But while the Bombe, an electromechanical device, was an amazing piece of engineering, it is far from being the end of the story of computing at Bletchley.

Enigma was invented at the end of the First World War and had been commercially available for governments since the Twenties. In 1942 Hitler had commissioned a new system, more secure and sophisticated than Enigma. The new code, called Lorenz SZ40/42 by the Germans, and “Tunny” by the Allies, was produced on a machine with 12 coding wheels to Enigma’s four, greatly increasing the number of variations possible and therefore the security of the communications. The National Museum of Computing | Home to The First Electronic Computers. Uncovering Colossus - video now online | The National Museum of Computing. The video of Prof Brian Randell, seated in the heart of the Colossus Gallery at TNMOC, telling the story of how he uncovered the existence of Colossus in the 1970s and how the 30-year veil of secrecy surrounding the world’s first electronic computer was lifted, is now online. Tim Reynolds, Deputy Chair of TNMOC, said: "This video is essential viewing for anyone interested in the history of computing and we are delighted that Professor Brian Randell agreed to give his presentation in the new Colossus Gallery at TNMOC.

“The specially invited audience was captivated by Professor Randell’s history of the uncovering of Colossus. It was a fascinating talk of machines, code-breaking, intrigue and politics. We are delighted to make this presentation available free for anyone who wants to learn about one of the great milestones in computing.” The rebuild of Colossus can be seen every day at The National Museum of Computing, located on Bletchley Park. Notes To Editors. Uncovering Colossus - Prof Brian Randell.