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POPSMeet the Algorithm Small thank you to Alan Turing for making this a mathematical possibility. Also available in one form or another in video games, flash animations,java scripts, php.
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POPSTuring: Campaigners demand pardon for mathematics genius full at source: A month later, after Turing, a veteran of the then still secret Bletchley Park code-cracking team, had been giving a talk to the BBC on his pioneering work on artificial intelligence, he returned home to find his house burgled. Related articles * More UK News The culprit was an acquaintance of Murray's, who would prey on Murray's lovers, thinking they would be so afraid of being outed that they would not report the thefts to the police. But Turing defied this convention and went straight to the police, where he admitted his affair – a "crime" for which he was spared the normal two-year jail term in favour of a hormonal treatment designed to beef up his masculine urges and suppress his homosexuality. The resulting publicity was to prove too much to bear and in June 1954, the 41-year-old was found dead in bed by his housekeeper. He had eaten an apple he had laced with poison.
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POPSA Math Romance Top Ten Things That Math and Sex Have in Common 10. Explicit discussions of either topic is a faux pas at most cocktail parties. 9. Historically, men have been in control, but there are now efforts to get women more involved. 8. There are many joint results. 7. Both are prominent on college campuses, and are usually practiced indoors. 6. Most people wish they knew more about both subjects. 5. Both involve long and hard problems, and can produce interesting topology and geometry. 4. Both merit undivided attention, but mathematicians are prone to think about one while doing the other. 3. Saint Augustine was hostile to both, and Alan Turing took an unusual approach to both. 2. Both typically begin with a lot of hard work and end with a great but brief reward. 1. Professionals are generally viewed with suspicion, and most do not earn high pay.
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POPSLove, Hate - Uncertainty "In a society desperate to find certainty, and beset on all sides by people who claim to have it, this seems like a suitable moment to show that the idea of certainty-from-on-high was discredited 100 years ago. I wanted to tell the stories of the people who made this discovery and the great personal price they paid. A line of thinkers from Georg Cantor to Alan Turing saw the extent of the uncertainty in science, and incompleteness in logic and mathematics, and understood what we still haven't grasped as a culture. I am fascinated by just how reluctant we are to face up to what these heroes revealed."
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POPSIntelligent Computers Put To The Test It could also raise profound questions about whether a computer has the potential to be 'conscious' - and if humans should have the 'right' to switch it off. >>> I haven't seen humans having too much problem in 'shutting off' each other. What does it say about consciousness ?
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POPSTuring test, put to test next week. "I think the reason Alan Turing set this game up was that maybe to him consciousness was not that important; it's more the appearance of it, and this test is an important aspect of appearance.' "The test will be carried out by human 'interrogators', each sitting at a computer with a split screen: one half will be operated by an unseen human, the other by a program. The interrogators will then begin separate, simultaneous text-based conversations with both of them on any subjects they choose. After five minutes they will be asked to judge which is which." "a program needs only to make 30 per cent or more of the interrogators unsure of its identity to be deemed as having passed the test, based on Turing's own criteria"
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POPSDavid Malone presents: Dangerous Knowledge Alan Turing, the great Bletchley Park code breaker, father of computer science and homosexual, died trying to prove that some things are fundamentally unprovable. The film also talks to the latest in the line of thinkers who have continued to pursue the question of whether there are things that mathematics and the human mind cannot know. They include Greg Chaitin, mathematician at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center, New York, and Roger Penrose. Dangerous Knowledge tackles some of the profound questions about the true nature of reality that mathematical thinkers are still trying to answer today.
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POPSAlan Kay doesn't like today's computers Very interesting read for anyone interested in computing, its past and its future. Especially interesting to read that the man who invented a great deal of it doesn't like its progress or current status.
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POPSGAY Response to the blog from http://www.shelleytherepublican.com/2006/04/20/linux-a-european-threat-to-our-computers-by-tristan.aspx PS: This is sarcastic :) (and does not imply any inferiority of gay people)
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POPSTuring. Et l'informatique fut La machine de Turing : lorsque Turing conçoit sa machine, explique certaines formes du vivant ou définit la notion d’intelligence, une seule question le guide : quel est le périmètre de calculabilité du domaine considéré ? Alan Turing sut non seulement lancer les bases d’un nouveau mode de connaissance, mais aussi lui assigner des limites. Renouer les fils de l’histoire, comprendre le projet scientifique de Turing, contribueront, nous l’espérons, à lutter contre l’opacité de pratiques devenues mondiales et à apprécier pleinement ce que l’on doit à l’informatique.
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