Allen and his brother John spent their childhood in England, and were taken care of by a retired couple, while their parents worked in India, which was quite common at that time.
From 65438 to 0922, Allen entered Hazelle Hearst Preparatory School in Kent. His initial interests were maps, chess and chemistry. Turing read an Edwin? Danny. Brewster's natural wonders should be known to every child. Turing later said that this book opened his scientific vision and had a far-reaching impact on his understanding of the relationship between man and machine. "Obviously, the human body is also a machine." This book explains:
"This is an extremely complicated machine. Although it is thousands of times more complicated than any hand-made machine, it is still a machine in essence. Someone once compared the human body to a steam engine, but at that time we didn't know much about its working principle. Now, we compare it to an internal combustion engine, just like the internal combustion engines of cars, ships and planes. "
At the beginning of the 20th century, the view that "the human body is a machine" was considered very ignorant, just like the naive idea in children's books now. But this is not the case. 200 years before Turing was born, French doctor and philosopher Julian? Auffray. Pull? Mattel (1709— 175 1) described the mechanical working mechanism of human body and even thinking in his controversial book "L'Homme Machine" in 1747. Turing felt that his body was also a machine since he was a child, and later he was remembered by the world for exploring the relationship between machines and human beings.
1926, he was admitted to Sherbone, the oldest public school in Britain. Turing was blocked by a general strike on the first day of his first semester in Sherbourne, so he couldn't go to school by train. Allen decided to ride 60 miles to school. The local newspaper reported this feat.
Allen didn't associate with other boys in Sherbone. He is shy and lonely, and always seems to be disheveled and stained with ink. "All his characteristics are easy to be laughed at, especially his shy, hesitant and shrill voice-not completely stuttering, but hesitating, as if waiting for a complicated program to translate his ideas into human language." He could have made up for his shortcomings by studying hard, but it was not the case. Only in mathematics did he show some signs of intellectual talent.
By 1929, Allen began to be fascinated by the book Nature in the Physical World (1928). This is a widely popular and influential book written by Arthur, an astronomer at Cambridge University. This book, written by Sir Eddington, explores the influence of two new sciences, relativity and quantum theory. Allen is still with a guy named Christopher? Morcom's classmates have close contacts. He and Allen have the same interest in science and mathematics. He was born in a family that is more interesting and scientific than Allen. Christopher's grandfather was Joseph? 1879 Sir Swan, who invented the incandescent bulb, was independent of Edison's invention.
In retrospect, it was probably at that time that Turing discovered his homosexual identity, and Christopher was his first love. But there was no sign of physical contact between the two young people. They did chemical experiments together, exchanged mathematical formulas and discussed Eddington and James, another astronomy professor at Cambridge University. New astronomy and new physics in Sir Jane's book.
Cambridge University is the place that aspiring British scientists pursue, and its most prestigious college in the fields of science and mathematics is Trinity College. 192965438+In February, Allen and Christopher spent a week in Cambridge University to take a scholarship exam and bathed together in Francis? Bacon, Isaac? Newton, James? Clark. Maxwell's alma mater. A week after their return to Sherbone, the test results were published in The Times. Allen was not admitted, but Christopher was. Christopher will go to Trinity College, and Allen's best hope is to be admitted to Trinity College or other colleges in Cambridge next year.
Two months later, Christopher suddenly fell ill and died within a week because he was infected with bovine tuberculosis as a child. One of their old classmates in Sherbone wrote: "Poor Turing almost collapsed because of this blow. They must be extremely good friends. " Although Turing also had more intimate sexual relations with other men, it was obvious that his love and admiration for Christopher was unmatched by others.
1930 12, Turing took the exam of Trinity College again, but he was still not accepted. His second choice is King's College, Cambridge University. This time, he decided to specialize in mathematics and devoted himself to the study of G.H. Hardy's classic book "A Course in Pure Mathematics", which was then 15 edition. 193 1 In autumn, Allen began his study at King's College, Cambridge University.
In the second year, Turing studied a new book called "Mathematical Basis of Quantum Mechanics", which was written by the young Hungarian mathematician John? Feng? Neumann. In the mid-1920s, Feng? Neumann works with David? Hilbert had a love affair at the University of G? ttingen. Most of the early mathematical research work of quantum mechanics was carried out at the University of Gogentin. In the 1930s, Feng? Neumann immigrated to the United States and taught at Princeton University. 1933, he became one of the first mathematicians employed by Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies. Now, through some occasions, Feng? Neumann and Allen? Turing's life began to intersect.
Turing and Feng? Neumann first met probably in the summer of 1935, when Feng? Neumann took advantage of his working holiday at Princeton University to come to Cambridge University to give a lecture on almost periodic functions. Turing is already familiar with the theme of the speech and Feng? Neumann's research work in this field. That spring, Turing had published his first paper, * * * two pages, discussing the almost periodic equivalence between left and right (London Mathematical Society, 1935), which popularized Feng? Neumann's paper published the year before.
Neither of them expected that they would meet again in Princeton, New Jersey the next year.
Turing's interest in the subtle and profound field of mathematical logic may have started at 1933, when he read Bertrand? Russell 19 19 works Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. At the end of the book wrote:
"If a student enters the door of mathematical logic because of this book and makes a serious study, then this book has achieved the original intention of writing at that time."
1935 In the spring semester, Tu Lingxiu took the course Basic Mathematics. The speaker is Maxwell? Herman. Alexander? Newman (1897-1984), whose initials are M.H.A, is more famous, and people often affectionately call him Max. Max. Newman is famous for his work in combinatorial topology, but he may also be the most knowledgeable person in mathematical logic at Cambridge University. Newman's climax is a proof of Godel's incompleteness theorem. (The introduction to mathematical logic at the graduate level still adopts a similar structure.
In addition, Newman's course also covers unresolved decisive issues. "Is there a certain method, or Newman's' mechanical process', that can be applied to a mathematical proposition and draw a conclusion that the proposition can prove?" Of course, Newman's "mechanical process" does not refer to machines. Machines may be able to perform simple arithmetic operations, but they can hardly solve practical mathematical problems. Newman alluded to a process called "algorithm"-a clear (but unconscious and unintelligent) instruction set to solve a problem. Turing began to study certainty in the early summer of 1935. By then, he had won a scholarship of 300 pounds a year from Cambridge University. Turing later said that when he came up with the idea to solve the decisive problem, he was lying on the lawn of Grantchester, which is a very popular leisure place for Cambridge students, about two miles from King's College.
By April of 1936, Turing had given Newman his draft paper "On Countability and Its Application in Deterministic Problems".
About Max? Newman also read the manuscript of Turing's paper, and he received the American mathematician Alonso? Qiu Qifa's essay Notes on Determinism 13. Based on another published paper, Qiu Qi's article also concludes that the decisive problem is insoluble.
Others beat us to it. This usually means that his paper cannot be published and is doomed to be forgotten. But what about Max? Newman realized that Turing's method was more innovative, which was very different from Qiu Qi's method. He still suggested that Turing submit papers to the London Mathematical Society for publication. According to the published paper, the time for the Society to receive it is May 28th, 1936. ) Turing explained this in a letter to his mother on May 29th:
"Now, there is a paper published in the United States at the same time, the author is Alonso? Qiu Qi, he and I do the same thing, but in different ways. Nevertheless, Mr. Newman and I feel that a completely different method can completely get my paper published. Alonso? Church lives in Princeton, so I'm pretty sure I'll go there. "
Turing's paper was published in the Journal of the London Mathematical Society in June 5438+0936+0/kloc-0 and February 65438 respectively, and a three-page revised draft was published in February 1937. Alonso? Qiu Qi wrote a four-paragraph comment on this paper in the Journal of Symbolic Logic, 1937 in May, in which he wrote: "A human calculator with a pencil, a piece of paper and a series of clear instructions can be regarded as a Turing machine." This is the place where the word "Turing Machine" is known to have first appeared in the text.
As early as May 1935, Turing considered going to Princeton University and applied for a visiting scholarship to Princeton University. A year later, he found that Qiu Qi, a professor of mathematics at Princeton University, had also published a paper on decisive issues, so Turing "quite definitely decided" to go to Princeton University.
Newman helped. He introduced Turing's work to Qiu Qi, and in the same letter, asked him to help Turing get a scholarship:
"I should point out that Turing's work is completely independent and has never been guided or judged by anyone. So it is more important for him to get in touch with the top figures in this field as soon as possible, so that he will not be lonely. "
Tending to work independently without external influence is actually a big problem for Turing. As early as when he was young, Turing recreated binomial theory and invented his own calculus symbols. When trying to solve this decisive problem, he was not familiar with the early achievements of Qiu Qi and his colleagues, which may be a good thing, otherwise he might not have found such an interesting solution. However, in general, it is necessary to understand what is happening in other parts of the world. Princeton is such a place for the field of mathematical logic. Turing didn't get the scholarship he applied for, but he got a scholarship from King's College.
The aura of intellectuals in Princeton, New Jersey, has become more brilliant because of the establishment of the Institute of Advanced Studies. The Institute of Advanced Studies was founded by Louis? Bamberg donated $5 million. Bamberg founded the Bamberg department store chain and sold it to Macy's before the Great Depression.
The Institute of Advanced Studies was originally established to promote scientific and historical research. In the early years, the Mathematics Department of the Institute of Advanced Studies and the Mathematics Department of Princeton University were in the same building, which facilitated many exchanges between the two institutions. The Institute of Advanced Studies quickly became the home of outstanding scientists and mathematicians, some of whom fled dangerous Europe and came here, among whom Einstein was the most famous. He came here in 1933 and spent the rest of his life here.
When Turing arrived at Princeton University in September 1936, he really wanted to meet Kurt. Godel. A year ago, Godel was still in the Institute of Advanced Studies, and then he came back. Unfortunately, he had never met Turing.
Is Feng someone Turing knew at Cambridge University? Neumann is now in the Institute of Advanced Studies, and G.H. Hardy is also from Cambridge University. Richard. Courant and Herman? Weil also works in the Institute of Advanced Studies. They fled G? ttingen a few years ago.
Turing stayed at Princeton University for two years, and in the second year he won the Proch Scholarship (a total of *** 2000 US dollars). Qiu Qi became Turing's thesis tutor. Under the guidance of Qiu Qi, Turing wrote a thesis and received his doctorate on June 2, 2008. Turing declined Feng? Neumann offered an annual salary of 1500 yuan as his assistant and returned to England a month later. He teaches basic mathematics at Cambridge University.
Turing is a British mathematician and an outstanding figure in the history of computer science. Students who have studied artificial intelligence, computer science and cryptography should be familiar with his contributions. His contribution to artificial intelligence lies in the famous Turing test developed for testing artificial intelligence. He tried to solve controversial problems in artificial intelligence, such as "Is the computer intelligent?" , and thus developed a test. In theoretical computer science, there is a course that studies the calculation model of Turing machine. Turing machine is a mathematical model, which captures the essence of calculation. It aims to answer the question: "What does it mean that a function is computable?" Readers should understand that Turing essentially discussed the concept of solving specific problems with algorithms seven or eight years before the first digital computer appeared.
You may have seen this film about the British war in World War II. During the period of 1940- 1944, German planes dropped nearly 200,000 tons of bombs in Britain. In blakely Park on the outskirts of London, Turing led a group of mathematicians to crack the German code, which is called the "enigma". They finally cracked the code with Enigma cipher machine. This device cracked the codes of all military orders sent to German ships and planes. The success of Turing Group played a decisive role in the victory of the Allied Forces.
Turing invented the concept of stored program, which is the basis of all modern computers. Before 1935, he had described an abstract computing machine with infinite storage space-it has a reading head (scanning channel), which moves the storage space back and forth and reads the symbols specified by the program stored in the storage space: this concept is called a universal Turing machine.
Turing put forward his own opinion on how to organize the nervous system to promote brain function a long time ago: Craig Webster explained Turing's paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" in his article (finally published in 1950 "Mind") and introduced Turing B- network as an unorganized machine. This B-network can be found in the cerebral cortex of human infants. This far-sighted observation reminds us of the agent's worldview.
Turing discussed two types of unorganized machines, which are called Type A and Type B. Type A machines consist of NAND gates, and each node has two states, two inputs and any number of outputs, which are represented by 0 or 1. Each A-type network intersects with the other three A-type nodes in a specific way, generating binary pulses that constitute B-type nodes: Turing has recognized the possibility of training and the necessity of self-stimulation feedback loop, and Turing also thinks that a "genetic search" is needed to train B-type networks, so as to find satisfactory values (or patterns).
In blakely Park, Turing often discussed with Donald Mitch (his colleague and follower) the concept of how machines learn from experience and solve new problems. Later, this was called heuristic problem solving and machine learning.
Turing has a deep understanding of the problem-solving method of using chess games as an artificial intelligence test platform for a long time. Although the computer of his time was not enough to develop powerful chess programs, he realized the challenges brought by chess.