Alan Turing one of the most important people in the history of the computer would have turned 100 today if he had lived. Though the chances of living to 100 are not great Turing didn't even manage to get as far as he should have.
It is occasionally argued about but it is considered that he committed suicide due to being hounded by the powers that be and given chemicals to subdue his sex drive. The reason for this was that he was Gay and in 40's and 50's being homosexual was not just illegal but thought to be a security risk.
Alan was faced with the choices of chemical castration or prison and exclusion from his work. He chose the chemicals. They had nasty side effects but he seems to have taken his treatment mainly in his stride.
Mr Turing wasn't just a mathematical genius he was a war hero having worked at Bletchley Park during the second world war cracking codes and thus saving at least allied lives. He is most often mentioned in association with the enigma machine.
His contributions to modern computing are huge and he is considered one of the founders of the subject Computer Science.
His achievements are great and yet the first time I heard of him was when I picked up one of Alaric's computing books after our move to Gloucestershire. It is strange that like Ada Lovelace he seems to have fallen through the cracks some what. And worse than that his centenary year is plagued by arguments of how to portray him.
Is it good or bad for those on the autism spectrum to know of him and so on. If he had been alive to day he would have probably been diagnosed with Aspergers syndrom but why is this a problem? Yes that was a facet of his personality but that is all. Use him to show others in the same situation as him that they can achieve by all means but that is not what is happening - I think there needs to be a gear shift in society. After all with the modern world lets face it the Geek shall inherit and that is all geeks, the meek, mild, argumentative, know it alls and the distracteds.
His achievements are his and he should be being portrayed as a founder and hero to everyone and I mean everyone. I will twist Alaric's arm into writing a blog post about Alan's achievements.
We made a Turing Machine Cake and drew the shamefully bad picture at the top of the post.
Saturday was a hectic manic day with School Fetes, baby throwing up, art gallery stuff and Science Show Off.
Science Show off was part of the fringe science festival and was organised by Skeptics In The Pub. It appears to be a regular event in London and I have even signed up to do a talk in Bristol though the slots where already full 🙁
Anyway here are the photos I took of the event which had me laughing far too much. It was low light levels so the photos are a bit ropey I'm afraid.
This guy had a rainbow that whizzed round - always a winner with me.
This talk even had live music played on a piano by Rob Wix (I think).
This was @ FunSizeSuze talking about pendulums 🙂
This guy gave a talk on why chillies are spicy hot 🙂 Here he is eating a rather hot chilli after which he could be found re-examining his experiment in a sink shaped test tube.
These guys were Domestic Science and had wine and a slide show of how they used noodles as litmus paper to test the acidity/alkali nature of kitchen products. It was quiet funny.
This talk on a brief history of electronics (cor look at that guys valves!) was really interesting and was one that I lernt some new stuff - stuff that is relavent to a young adult sci-fi book I am writing at the moment.
This was the other half of the pendulum talk but focused more on the fear reaction that Suze had had whilst taking part in the flying trapeze when she is petrified of heights!
This talk was on termites which again was not only entertaining - especially as it involved hissing cockroaches - I had been looking at some earlier on Saturday at the School fete along with pygmy hedgehogs. This talk is another one that is going to provide ideas and material for the fiction writing - oh yes!
I didn't manage to get a photo of everyone 🙁 And I need to get better at photography and maybe even get a nice camera that works and doesn't need shaking.
I really enjoyed the show 🙂 I'm also hoping there are going to be more Skeptics In The Pub stuff as I made it too very little this week due to the fall at the beginning :/
Jean woke me up at 8 o'clock to make Daddy breakfast in bed for Fathers Day. I was already awake thanks to creative insomnia. We made him breakfast and presented it too him (not entirely sure he was initially chuffed to be awoken early on a Sunday!).
The baby instantly stole his yogurt (it's an alpro one so she can actually eat it and she did!).
We had also made some planet/space cupcakes for him which Jean gave him 🙂 I bet you can guess which two the baby decorated!
The we were off to the Cheltenham Science Festival for the day. Above is me and Jean pestering the guy from the Cotswold Astronomical Society.
Jean again spent an age looking through microscopes and prodding things. The main phrase I heard through out the day was, 'I see you have a budding scientist there!'
Alaric found electronics and was happy 🙂 He also found a picture of Alan Turin and thus told a very interested (and I mean it) Jean about the origins of computing.
Mary entertained herself for a huge chunk of time with reading the science festival programme 🙂
I found pretty lighting to take photos of!
Jean found an entity called Keji. She got to generate her own little creature who's bounciness was based on her heart rate. Meaning she got to bounce on a trampoline 🙂
She then helped the Sustainable Chemists with their experiments 🙂 Though she did inform one Chemist that she didn't want to make a rubber ball because she wanted to explode more things!
Oh yes! She also wanted to start a fire with the telescope once I explained we mustn't look directly at the sun.
We then went to The Aviator at Staverton airport for dinner which everyone loved 🙂
This is my knitted sucrose molecule still missing some of it's hydrogens. It has worked out both better and worse than I expected - as a first attempt I think it's great personally. My long term plan is to knit molecular assembles so groups of molecules as say found in tea, comet tails and chocolate... you get the idea 🙂
The finished knit is part of the work I will have on display at Centre Arts Cheltenham as part of their charity Exhibition Please Touch. The idea behind my knitted molecule is to give a tactile visualisation as it were of what how a molecule fits together - it is basically a model.
They have also asked for The Tree of Life Coral to be there which makes me very excited - I would have loved to have the sound cave up and running for this but it took too long to get the basic funding so that is going to appear later in the year and at a few things next year. There is still time to fund the Sound/Sensory Cave though not much! I have reached target but the excess money will go towards a science-art exhibition next year in March.
Art and Craft, Computing, Crypto / security, Events and Outings, Recipies, Society | sarah | 
Sat 23rd Jun 2012 11:36 pm | 
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