Lost Turing Letters Give Unique Insight Into His Academic Life Prior To Death (manchester.ac.uk) 142
bellwould shares a report from The University of Manchester. From the report: A lost and unique collection of letters and correspondence from the late Alan Turing has been found in an old filing cabinet in a storeroom at the University of Manchester. The file's content, which potentially hasn't seen the light of day for at least 30 years, dates from early 1949 until Turing's death in June 1954. Altogether there are 148 documents, including a letter from GCHQ, a handwritten draft BBC radio program about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and offers to lecture from some of America's most famous universities, such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
... [T]he letters do give a unique glimpse into his every day working life at the time of these events. Plus, some documents also give a brief insight into some of his more forthright personal opinions. For example, his response to a conference invitation to the U.S. in April 1953 is simply, "I would not like the journey, and I detest America." The collection of papers has been sorted, catalogued and stored at the University's Library by Archivist, James Peters. The documents themselves were found by Professor Jim Miles of the School of Computer Science.
... [T]he letters do give a unique glimpse into his every day working life at the time of these events. Plus, some documents also give a brief insight into some of his more forthright personal opinions. For example, his response to a conference invitation to the U.S. in April 1953 is simply, "I would not like the journey, and I detest America." The collection of papers has been sorted, catalogued and stored at the University's Library by Archivist, James Peters. The documents themselves were found by Professor Jim Miles of the School of Computer Science.
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Its like Doug Pirana, cruel but fair.
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Funny)
He should have gone to San Francisco.
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He should have gone to San Francisco.
San Fran back in the '40s was not at all like San Fran today...
FWIW, the Castro prior to the '60s was referred to as Eureka Valley or "Little Scandinavia" and during prohibition the location of many speakeasys. Most of the gay folks that migrated to the bay area prior to the '60s lived up in Sausalito. It wasn't until the post-war white-flight from that area that the population shifted enough that in '63 the first gay bar was opened in the Castro...
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But Manchester at that time was even less like it is today. It would not have had a gay district back then as it does now, while the postwar Beat bohemia movement was already gathering steam in the US. Jack Kerouac had already coined the phrase "Beat Generation" by 1948, and although the movement originally took root in Times Square and Greenwich Village, it didn't take long for it to transplant west.
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not harsh. This might be harsh (but I don't think so):
"His high pitched voice already stood out above the general murmur of well-behaved junior executives grooming themselves for promotion within the Bell corporation. Then he was suddenly heard to say: 'No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I'm after is just a mediocre brain, something like the President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.' (In the Bell Labs cafeteria, New York, 1943)".
- Alan Hodges ("Alan Turing: the Enigma of Intelligence")
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I'm not sure if you were serious or if you were trying to provide a great example of why Americans are so detestable
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A lot of people in that time period understood very clearly that there are much more detestable things in the world than, "He holds a self-righteous opinion" or whatever your complaint it.
You think that there is nothing in the world worse than a person saving your life and patting themselves on the back for it, somebody else might also consider the outcome, "OK what if hadn't saved you, and also wasn't patting himself on the back? Better, right?"
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It does seem especially strange to be anti-American in the post-WWII period. Mental illness can be very cruel.
Well he worked at Bell Labs before (Score:2)
Ermmmm (Score:3)
Was there a sign on the door saying "beware of the Leopard" ?
Sounds about right (Score:1)
"I would not like the journey, and I detest America."
My experience with smart people is that they hate travel, and with stupid people is that they like travel.
Which kinda makes sense to me...
Re: His detest may have more to do... (Score:5, Informative)
It does not seem to be well-known that Alan Mathison Turing (1912-1954) spent two academic years at Princeton University, from the summer of 1936 to the summer of 1938.
Alan Turing returned to the U.S. during WWII as a liaison between the two communities of cryptanalysts for about four months, from November 1942 to March 1943. He arrived in New York City on November 12, 1942, before heading to the headquarters of the U.S. Secret Service (now the CIA) in Washington, D.C.
Source [maa.org]
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>It does not seem to be well-known that Alan Mathison Turing (1912-1954) spent two academic years at Princeton University, from the summer of 1936 to the summer of 1938.
It's pretty famous, actually. He worked with Von Neumann, though not with anything related to computers, ironically enough.
Re: His detest may have more to do... (Score:5, Interesting)
The future was getting ready for TICOM (Target Intelligence Committee) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
The race was on to find and keep German and Italian cryptanalysts with the needed Russian skills at the end of ww2.
Germany had codebooks on Turkey, Romania, Bolivia and Ecuador. Some material from Switzerland, France and the Vatican. German and Italy also had some British and American code traffic.
Enigma was the past even with later German improvements during ww2. Spying on the Soviet Union, France, the rest of the world was the new tasking. Collect it all.
Some security issues had to be allowed for at the very start of ww2, they would not be allowed after ww2.
A lot of staff hired could not be trusted near the end of ww2 and after 1945.
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Yeah, gays were a lot more accepted in the US in the 50s. Almost as much as the blacks.
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And you keep more and more of them safe and protected in buildings built just for them!
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America is kind of the land of idiots from the British perspective, I should think, as an American myself.
Actually this is an old, reflexive British academic perspective prevalent at the time, just like the reflexive anti-white perspective that seethes in our own academic culture today.
(Hmmm, I just almost typoed acadermic, a word that ought to exist, to denote the thin-skinned nature of liberal arts culture).
Re:Sounds about right (Score:5, Insightful)
My experience with smart people is that they hate travel, and with stupid people is that they like travel.
My experience with people who make statements like this is that they have a very narrow (and often self-serving) definition of smart.
Re: Sounds about right (Score:1)
I have a different view ... Intelligent people travel. They like to experience different cultures and expose themselves to new ideas, foods and religions. To help make themselves more well rounded. If you have never travelled, you're probably a trump voter
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Stupid and smart people both travel. When the stupid ones get to the different culture, they go bowling and eat at McDonalds (Americans), lay on a beach and eat frog food (French), get drunk as fuck (Ruskys, English, Scots, Irish and Australians). Basically act like they were at home.
The slightly less stupid of that group decide that only stupid people like to travel, because what they are doing is stupid. Smart people realize the stupid are doing the whole thing wrong.
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My experience corresponds with GP; the majority of people who like to travel tend to be too limited in intelligence to even appreciate their immediate environment, yet use the whole "travel broadens the mind" to justify their trip to another continent.
In short, the majority of people are too stupid to even learn from their current environment, yet when they proclaim that travel will broaden their mind other stupid people agree with them.
My experience is both. I see stupid people like to travel. I see smart people like to travel. I see both stupid and smart people like to stay in place. Nothing is black and white or mutual exclusive.
Also, you need to define the word "smart" before you extend it to other thing else. What "smart" to me is someone who could make a right decision to any problems. The decision may not solve those problems but at least could ease the issue to somewhat much easier to be handled with later on. Furthermore, Smart !=
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"you need to define the word 'smart'": I think the original poster would define it as "like me" (like him, that is, not like the me who's writing this now). That is the basis of racism, class-ism, and so forth.
Re: Sounds about right (Score:2, Insightful)
Correction: autistic and self-obsessed people who think they are smart don't like to travel. Intelligent people look forward to the experience. Your opinion is biased by your limited and bigoted view, which stems from the sad fact that you only deal with narrow-minded, socially-deficient elements like yourself. Dismissed.
Re: Sounds about right (Score:4, Insightful)
2 hour travel to a London airport.
3 hour wait time in security, the lounge, check-in queues, etc. at a London airport.
God-knows-how-long a flight, in cramped conditions, unable to escape.
1 hour wait time to pass security the other end.
2 hour travel to your hotel.
All the same again a few days later.
Sorry, but it's got nothing to do with autism or anything else - what a horrible way to go, just to give a talk. Sod that. I wouldn't do that to start a week's holiday in Europe.
I think you miss the point that "travel" doesn't just mean "wander around a country" but the hassle of getting there in the first place, which can consume a vast portion of your free time. If you're not going to get a holiday, are going to working / giving a talk while you're there, you'd have to pay me a LOT of money to suffer that, especially so in Turing's day.
The "experience" of travel - as in "holidaying" - is entirely different to travelling for business / academia.
YOUR opinion is biased in favour of your limited, bigoted, mis-targeted, attacking view without an understanding of what's being discussed.
Turing lived in America for a while. He detested it. And he also hated the journey.
P.S. Yes, even travel for a "holiday", sorry, but I've been many, many, many places for everything from tent-camping to five-star cruise ships (e.g. the QE2). Most "travel" sucks. Especially if you are only able to go see the same tourist attractions as everyone else. There are moments, but just because you have a funny incident in Mumbai once doesn't mean that it's a life-changing and necessary experience.
Just having been to a country that someone else hasn't doesn't make you a world expert on it. Nor does it mean you're going to "discover yourself" and "learn about new cultures" or any of the other cliches that people trot out.
Travel-and-live-there, yes, possibly. Anything else is just holidaying.
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This is my experience, I travel 3-4 times a year to Italy.
40 mins drive to airport
10 mins at valet collection - if you shop around this is cheaper than off - airport parking.
30 mins though security.
60 minutes until flight take off -during which time I have breakfast.
90 minutes flight to Verona
10 minutes through passport control
40 mins at car hire - the worst bit - why can't this be streamlined ???? 40 minutes drive to destination
6 hour
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90 minutes of flight translates to about 800-900 road miles. Say from Seattle to San Francisco. By road, that trip would take between 16-18 hours. Which likely means, several rest stops, food and possibly an overnight motel if you're not a hardy driver. I'd fly thank you...
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If the plane accelerated to 600 mph right off the runway, and went from 600 to zero after it touched down on the runway at the other end, yes. In fact airplanes spend a good deal more time in the air at much slower speeds, particularly on short hops. I just did a bit of googling of flights, trying to find a 90 minute flight here in the US. Richmond VA to New York is ~1h 20m, and the road trip is 330 miles, a bit over 5 hours (with a lot of that going around Washington DC and through Baltimore; not sure w
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Correction: autistic and self-obsessed people who think they are smart don't like to travel. Intelligent people look forward to the experience. Your opinion is biased by your limited and bigoted view, which stems from the sad fact that you only deal with narrow-minded, socially-deficient elements like yourself. Dismissed.
I've traveled a lot. I've worked in a number of different countries across the East and West. The stupidest bunch of travelers are, without fail, those that are under some sort of misguided notion that travel broadens the mind (Yes, I read that above, so what?)
The majority of travelers are the type who find out what McDonalds taste like in other countries. Fewer travelers are the type to actually learn something from their trip.
I'm sorry - I see very few smart travelers. Most of the people I see who like t
Re: Sounds about right (Score:5, Interesting)
No. Because they stay at home, and you never met them. Thus while people tend to be idiots everywhere (even travelers), you incorrectly assume that the people staying at home are somewhat more smart. This is survivorship bias [wikipedia.org]. You don't have any sufficient data to make conclusions about people staying at home.
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Sorry about your comprehension, hopefully you're just having an off day and it isn't any serious medical problem.
He didn't say anything at all about the people staying at home. He narrowly discussed observations about people traveling. If the people at home are just as idiotic as the ones traveling, you're supporting his thesis. And yet, you use the word "no" instead of the word "yes." I guess it is true after all; idiots are not only traveling and staying at home, they're even on the internet!
Re: Sounds about right (Score:4, Interesting)
I suggest that while *travel* may not broaden the mind, living in another country certainly does.
I lived in Belgium and Australia as a child and find America to be culturally insular. There's a whole world out there, folks, with music and books and art...shame we don't see as much of it as we could.
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Ya...if only everyone could afford the $2,000 ticket, hotel costs, food, etc.
Most people have jobs, families and responsibilities.
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I suggest that while *travel* may not broaden the mind, living in another country certainly does.
You're on to something, anyway: it's the nature of the travel. If you hop on a cruise ship in order to enjoy the floating shigella/norovirus buffets and you visit some ports and do a little shopping, you're not going to broaden your mind, only your ass. Spend the same amount of time driving around a country, stopping in towns that aren't wholly supported by tourism and not just eating something but actually doing something, seeing something, and you'll get a lot more out of the same trip.
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Hey there, Dill Weed, since you skipped all your anthropology studies I'd like to point out that "gregarious" is a personality trait, not a moral or ethical stance.
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Three supporting views (I hope instructive and entertaining):
https://www.theatlantic.com/da... [theatlantic.com]
http://www.independent.co.uk/v... [independent.co.uk]
https://www.spectator.co.uk/20... [spectator.co.uk]
Re:Sounds about right (Score:5, Interesting)
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
- Mark Twain
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make people more liberal
Um, no. The average modern liberal is far less accepting of other people's right to live the way they want than the average conservative.
Though I'll admit that this is probably just that wacko liberals tend to want to harm me personally, and wacko conservatives just want to harm my friends...
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"I would not like the journey, and I detest America."
My experience with smart people is that they hate travel, and with stupid people is that they like travel.
Which kinda makes sense to me...
Well, I hate travel, but I've been forced into it by the nature of my technical job. However, I don't "hate" anyplace I've been forced to go, I simply hate the process of travel and being away from familiar places. I like meeting new people, experiencing other cultures, seeing new things and tasting local food. I just don't like the whole packing, standing in lines, squeezing into an airplane seat for hours, sleeping in strange places, struggling to communicate in languages I don't fully understand, deal
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I hate to travel. To Decatur Illinois, Birmingham Alabama etc etc (epic shitholes).
Overseas, not so much. Even if the local place I'm doing business sucks, I can usually find something cool, reasonably close. But I've never been to Swansea...hear it's a 'pretty shitty city'.
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I hate to travel...Birmingham Alabama etc etc (epic shitholes).
It might surprise you to know that our Birmingham is not only a noticeably more refined place than their Birmingham, but has only about one-tenth as many rednecks - 'chavs', as they are called there.
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But does it have it's own smell? Decatur and Birmingham are two cities I could identify in one breath/gag.
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My experience with smart people is that they hate travel, and with stupid people is that they like travel.
This must explain why so many stupid people get airline jobs, from nasty gate agents to drunk and suicidal pilots.
Headline is wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Aren't they Found Turing Letters?
Re: Headline is wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Whereas Ernst Schroedinger's letters are both.
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Whereas Ernst Schroedinger's letters are both.
Who is Ernst Schroedinger? Do you mean Erwin Schrödinger?
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"Who is Ernst Schroedinger? Do you mean Erwin SchrÃdinger?"
Both.
At the same time.
Re: Headline is wrong (Score:1)
Sorry about that, you're probably right. I won't risk diacriticals here on mobile.
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Whereas Ernst Schroedinger's letters are both.
Among which were found an empty, tear-stained bag of "Schnucki" brand cat food.
If things were different (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If things were different (Score:5, Informative)
he was the Rockstar of GC&CS until they wanted to 'fix' him
Note that the "they" in that sentence wasn't GC&CS. Turing quit GC&CS at the end of the war to pursue his ambition to create an electronic computer. Turing had been a civilian for 7 years before his prosecution by civilian courts.
Visionary, 65 years later everybody detests Murica (Score:1)
A real visionary, 65 years later everybody detests America!
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Europe is not France and Germany.
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I think it's been a huge negative. You have millions that do not want to assimilate; who detest their host country's culture. How do you think that is going to work out?
Do you really see peace and happiness at the end of this road?
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Mass migration has been part and parcel of European life for centuries. The latest wave started in the 1960s with various European countries importing cheap labor, others honoring agreements with former colonies. Since the 1960s, our level of wealth and welfare has skyrocketed, thanks in part to the extra labor provided by those immigrants. We can handle taking in a few more. In fact, immigration is what keeps our demographics right-way-up, avoiding the inverted pyramid e.g. Japan is facing.
Sure, you get th
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Mass migration has been part and parcel of European life for centuries.
Longer. At least 130000 years.
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Pew Research records some horrible statistics - 70% + of Muslims in Europe wanting Sharia Law.
YouTube videos abound of imans advocating horrible racist, homophobic things; who, in front of 1000s argue that the death of homosexuals and atheists is legitimate.
The issue isn't if there's been mass migration in the past. Obviously there has been. The point is who decides who lives in an area?
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On the upside, the eurotrash are spouting off less about us wanting to control our borders. They've gotten a taste.
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It gets modded down because it's drenched in fear and ignorance. You sound scared.
Re: Visionary, 65 years later everybody detests M (Score:2)
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Rhen again it's Europe which are completely destroyed by Muslim and Africa immigration.
You're being premature, but I have been making a big effort to see it while its treasures are still there. This year, Iceland; next year, the Ligurian coast.
if they are lost (Score:1)
Good thing is was paper and not email... (Score:4, Interesting)
If it was email (apple/gmail/yahoo) these would be lost forever unless someone had his password and cellphone for two factor authentication.
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If it was email (apple/gmail/yahoo) these would be lost forever unless someone had his password and cellphone for two factor authentication.
If it was a few years later, it would have all be phone conversations that never would have been recorded in the first place.
Detest America? (Score:3)
Re:Detest America? (Score:4, Interesting)
Keep in mind he wrote that about the time his chemical castration procedure was completed. That was an act by the government of robbing a person of libido and the source of joy in life. And he surely thought of it as terribly unjust since in his mind he had done no harm to anyone. It had to be hard to be excited about travel or America in such a state, or life in general since as you know he killed himself a year later.
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In 1942, Alan Turning was essentially forced to go to the US to by a cryptography liaison with the explicit instructions from MI6 to not tell Americans anything because they couldn't be trusted. Here are some other comments [theguardian.com] that were made by him around that time...
Turing’s own reports from Washington are filled with disdain for what he saw as America’s overreliance on technology rather than thought. “I am persuaded that one cannot very well trust these people where a matter of judgment in cryptography is concerned,” he wrote. “It astonished me to find that they make these elaborate calculations before they had really grasped the main principles. [But] I think we can make quite a lot of use of their machinery.”
American culture was alien to Turing, who was irritated by what he saw as their incessant need for irrelevant small talk. “In one of his letters home, he’s complaining about their speech and the fact they kept saying ‘ummm’, ‘errrr’, ‘but’ and all these little stutters which got on his nerves,” Moore says. “He writes ‘Just say the sentence and then stop!’”
I'm no psychiatrist, but I suspect that an experience of being forced to play an adversarial role like that could poison the well a bit (anytime, it's them against us, there's a tendency to dehumanize your counterpart).
This may be the reason (Score:2)
[screenshot of bottom of article summary and "You may like to read:" below it, with red arrows joining "I detest America" with link to "Donald Trump Wins Presidency"]
For at least 30 years? (Score:2)
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Right, that implies that there was somebody at the time who worked there and was keeping them secret, and that person stopped working there 30 years ago and didn't tell anybody that it was there before departing. So nobody read it for at least 30 years.
Like a Movie Trailer (Score:2)
as percieved by an expert, trained AI (Score:2)
55. Never Index Your Own Book [neocities.org]
yay to the world (Score:1)
i dont think they have
Re: Some of his scribbles found too. Very informat (Score:1)
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Actually, AIDs epidemy started in the late 1970s, but first case go back to 1959 and some think it appeared as far back as the 1920s.
That being said, GP should eat an apple, power cord included.
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I only remember it becoming widespread in the 1980s.
And the comment about eating an apple made me laugh - thanks!