Google commemorates Alan Turing's 100th birthday

Google's search engine is also a Turing machine

'Kakkerlak is slimmer dan robots'

Lees hier het interview met mij over 'Turings Tango' dat universiteitsblad TU Delta vandaag publiceerde.

Alan Turing's Universal Machine: the modern computer

Turing Patterns and Animal Markings

Alan Turing is best known for the Turing Machine, breaking the Enigma-code and the Turing Test. Much less known is that he is one of the founders of mathematical biology, by writing in 1952 the article ‘The chemical basis of morphogenesis’. 

Because Turing knew nothing of genetics, scientists have long underestimated his one and only publication in mathematical biology. But the paper contains a load of interesting ideas and is on the transition point between the era of analytical mathematics and computational mathematics.

At the Turing Centenary conference How the World Computes mathematician Ian Stewart gave a public lecture this evening on Turing patterns and animal markings.

Here are some photo impressions with some quotes (click on the first one and you can go through all of them in larger format).

Ian Stewart: "If Turing would be alive today, he would be staggered where his theory on pattern formation has arrived."

Ian Stewart: "Patterns form by broken symmetries."

Ian Stewart: "Turing's reaction-diffusion equations show that local non-linearity combined with global diffusion create striking and often complex patterns."

Ian Stewart: "Theorem: A spotted animal can have a striped tail, but a striped animal cannot have a spotted tail."

And here are some stunning examples from patterns on shells from the Zoology Museum in Cambridge, next door to the conference:

This one has the pattern of a Sierpinski gasket:

Here are some more examples:

Later I will upload an MP3 audio recording of the lecture.

For the Dutch national newpaper NRC Handelsblad of Saturday June 23 I have written an article about Alan Turing's least known scientific contribution: mathematical biology, especially pattern formation.

Bletchley Park - Enigma, Turing & Colossus

Home of the Enigma code breakers during World War II

Birth place of one of the first computers, the Colossus

Homage to Alan Turing: computer pioneer, Enigma code breaker & founder of Artificial Intelligence

Click on the first image and you can go through all of them in larger format:

Some Enigma machines

A rebuilt Bombe, used to break the Enigma code (front view)

Bombe (back view)

The Colossus was used to break the Lorenz cipher machine 

(it's a one purpose semi programmable computer)

Some other stuff...

Photo's: Bennie Mols, 18 June 2012

New Scientist-video: 'How Turing accidentally invented the computer'

Tentoonstelling 'Turings Erfenis'

Van 14 juni t/m 6 oktober is bij het Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica de tentoonstelling Turings Erfenis te zien.

Met onder andere een introductie op Alan Turings werk, een originele Enigma, toepassingen van kunstmatige intelligentie, een Turingmachine gemaakt van LEGO, een Nederlandse Electrologica X1-computer uit het begin van de jaren '60 en andere prachtige voorlopers van onze huidige computer (uit het computermuseum van de UvA).

Bezoek de tentoonstelling, werp daarna een blik op uw smartphone, laptop of tablet-pc - allemaal krachtiger dan alle tentoongestelde oercomputers - en sta er even bij stil dat het allemaal exotische uitdossingen zijn van een bedrieglijk simpele Turingmachine.

Turingmachine gemaakt van LEGO

Een Nederlandse oercomputer: de Electrologica X1 uit begin jaren '60

Een Duitse Enigma-codeermachine uit WOII in bezit van het CWI 

(maar niemand weet meer hoe het apparaat in bezit van het CWI is gekomen...)

Foto's: Bennie Mols