Fight Begins To Secure Turing Papers For Bletchley Park Museum 66
Blacklaw writes "Auction house Christie's is planning to sell offprints of Alan Turing's early work for an estimated £500,000 — and the fight has begun to raise the money so UK codebreaking museum and charity Bletchley Park can house the documents in the building where Turing performed his war-winning work and birthed the concept of a modern 'universal computer.' If the money isn't raised, the papers could disappear into a private archive, never to be seen again."
Re:The lesson of politics is that... (Score:5, Informative)
You are trolling, but for the sake of accuracy here is what is generally acknowledged to be the case.
- after the war he struggled to get the kind of role and financial support he should have been given without a quibble or a bat of the eye - he eventually got a very good job at the University of Manchester, which is a great place, but it is amazing that he wasn't treated as a national treasure (was it 2 of Hilberts challenges he solved? Even allowing for the secrecy around the work during the war someone in the know should have pushed it on that basis)
- he was targeted for blackmail due to being gay when it was illegal
- the police arrested him and he was prosecuted and punished with hormone therapy
- the depression caused by the therapy and the awful behavior of society towards him, and his own personal isolation caused him to take his life
- he did it in such a way to allow his mother to go on believing that it was an accident
In 1956 the UK government had no reason to kill him, in fact it never did - quite the opposite. Instead they treated a great man with indifference and contempt because of his sexuality. I can't say that I can think of a more pathetic story in all senses of the word.
If you want to feel worse about it (as a human) then think what might have been if he had lived 25 more years and had enjoyed the appropriate support
Re:Save yoyr money (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Love to play Devil's Advocate... (Score:2, Informative)
These are off-prints, i.e., free sample copies of a journal article that authors are given.
Chances are, you can already go to a good university library and make photocopies of the articles.
If your university has a subscription, you can also see the articles on JSTOR:
http://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=au:(Turing)
Re:The lesson of politics is that... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The lesson of politics is that... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The lesson of politics is that... (Score:2, Informative)
I believe it was intended to reduce libido (chemical castration). "Turing agreed to take hormone therapy for a year instead of going to prison." [digital60.org]
Misleading headline (Score:3, Informative)
The headline is, as usual, misleading. These aren't Turing's papers (which usually means personal papers and notes belonging to the person named), they're copies of [professional] papers he wrote.
Re:Love to play Devil's Advocate... (Score:3, Informative)