Deep love, superficial imitation
Of all the great Turing's contributions to mankind, two are unparalleled. The first is his article "On Countable Numbers" in 1936, in which he defined a mechanical device, which was later called "Turing Machine" by his mentor Church. Von Neumann said that this laid the foundation for modern computers, and so did Godel. The second article is his article "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" published in the philosophy magazine Mind in 1950, in which Turing more clearly expounded the oldest concept in philosophy "thinking and consciousness", and his means was to turn the original proposition into the question of whether the machine can think, which is the origin of AI (artificial intelligence). Compared with these two articles, his other work, including his contribution to cracking the German cryptograph Enigma in World War II, has become secondary. If there were no Turing machine, I'm afraid it would take a long time for human beings to reach today's civilization in the dark.
In Computer and Intelligence, Turing defined the concept called "Turing test" by later generations, that is, how to judge whether a device has intelligence. The modern version of "Turing Test" is a game in which two black boxes are placed in front of the questioner, one containing people and the other containing machines. The questioner's task is to determine which of the two black boxes is a person and which is a machine. Questioners communicate with the two black boxes by passing notes and asking questions. If the questioner can't tell which box is a machine, then the machine is intelligent. This version is slightly different from that described in Turing's original article, but it is essentially equivalent. Turing optimistically predicted that 60 code farmers can build a machine after working for 50 years, and the questioner can be fooled by Turing test, that is, the machine will be intelligent. Sixty-four years later, some controversial devices have claimed to have passed the Turing test. I won't comment one by one here. In recent years, artificial intelligence has indeed become a hot topic.
The first section of the article "Computer and Intelligence" is entitled "The Imitation Game", which is the origin of the recent Hollywood blockbuster of the same name for Christmas and New Year. Weinstein, a film production company, has produced several well-received blockbusters in recent years. Turing is played by Cumberbatch, who is famous for playing Sherlock Holmes. He and Turing are both cancer and related by blood, but back to 1373, their paternal lines crossed, which was more than 500 years ago. Joan Clark (Turing's former fiancee) is played by keira knightley, a sasha jackson singer, who was born in 1985 and attracted much attention. It is said that the earliest candidate for the first hero is Xiao. Fortunately, the terms were not negotiated. Otherwise, Turing's American country accent is unbearable, even more awkward than Tieling's learning Shanghai dialect and Allanet's honking. Even a beloved master like Aimee Streep, when playing Margaret Thatcher, was viciously said by the British that "her accent is really like poshest in London, but her expression is wrong when she said something". But perhaps this thing, with the soaring national strength and box office, may not be a few years later, Hollywood blockbusters will invite two actors to play European aristocrats.
The main scene of the story is Blackley Park during World War II, which was the organization that cracked the communication codes of enemy countries in Britain during the war. Turing is responsible for cracking the encryption machine Enigma of the German Navy. From time to time, the story is interspersed with other two eras, namely, Turing studied at Sherbourne Middle School, where Turing met his first love Christopher Mokang; As well as Turing's later years in Manchester, he was accused of hooliganism and eventually committed suicide. Turing's Life I wrote an article "Mysterious Turing" in the Shanghai Book Review (201165438+February 3). At that time, one of my references was Andrew Hodges's widely acclaimed biography alan turing: The Mystery. Hodges himself is a mathematician and a homosexual. Monk, a philosopher and biographer, once commented on this book: "I wish I had written this book." "Monk once compiled the anthology The Great Philosopher. He chose twelve philosophers from Socrates and Plato, including Marx, Russell and Wittgenstein, except Kant. Unexpectedly, the last one turned out to be turing. He asked contemporary experts to write biographies and comments for these twelve people respectively. Monk wrote Russell himself, and Turing was written by hodges.
The blockbuster The Imitation Game is also said to be based on hodges's book. How's the movie going? Put it aside first and pick the wrong one.
Turing's first love
In the movie, Turing learned from the strengths of his middle school that his first love Malcolm had died, and he was quite moved. Alex lawther, the actor who plays the young Turing, is only 18 years old. His performance is remarkable and his future is limitless. Many middle-aged and elderly audiences in the cinema were moved to tears by this passage. But the fact is that Turing didn't know the news of his death from the headmaster, and the details were even more touching and dramatic: Turing went to a concert with Mo Kang on the night of his illness. Turing dreamed that Mokang said goodbye to him that night, and Mokang died six days later. Although Turing and Malcolm had several classes together, Malcolm was one step ahead of Turing. Turing took the Cambridge exam one year in advance in order to be with Malcolm. As a result, Malcolm got a scholarship from Trinity College, Cambridge University, but Turing was not accepted. It was not until the next year that he was admitted to King's College, Cambridge University. After learning of his death, Turing wrote to Morcom's mother, asking for a photo of Morcom as a souvenir, and also wrote to his mother that he and Morcom would meet again one day. In the movie, Turing named the machine built by Blackley Manor to crack Ingmar after his first love "Christopher". In fact, this machine is called Bombe, which was not originally created by the British. Before World War II, Polish mathematicians developed Bomba for enigma. Feeling threatened by the Nazis, they shared this achievement with the British Union on the eve of the outbreak of World War II. Bomba is an improved version of bomba. Turing's love for Malcolm is a bit like Wittgenstein's love for his early lover Pinsent. In addition to the attraction of the same sex, there is intellectual respect for each other. They have maintained friendship with each other's mother for many years. A lot of sadness can make people more religious, but Malcolm's death made Turing an atheist.