Alan Turing

 This is a short poem about Alan Turing, who as many people will know played a part in helping decode the Enigma machine and thus helping to save many lives in the war of the Atlantic. He became interested in the whole idea of computing and whether machines could think just at the right time. It is still an open question whether or not a machine can think but my chess computer regularly thrashes me at chess and I get computers to perform long tedious calculations not just involving numbers but stuff like integrals as well. I believe you can get computers to evaluate Feynman Integrals so for many well defined problems computers definitely can think even if it is not in the way that we do. Has this solved the problem of consciousness well not exactly but it is at least a step in the right direction. 

Unfortunately whilst Turing was good at decoding secrets he wasn't able to hide from the world that he was Gay and indulged in sexual activity which at that time was considered illegal/ Had he just kept in within a Cambridge college or at public school he would have probably got away with it. But it was the fact that he indulged in sex with working class men that seemed to alarm the authorities. So despite being a war hero Alan Turing was convicted and forced to take oestrogen which had the effect of making him impotent. As he couldn't live with this he committed suicide a tragic loss both to the country and the mathematical community. The narrow mindedness of the authorities really deserves condemnation although I suspect that there are still a substantial number of people Evangelical Christians in particular who would want to make Homo-Sexuality illegal again. Well let's hope they don't succeed. 

Alan Turing

 

Build a machine that can think,

Otherwise the ships will sink.

Many lives were saved by you,

And your talented Bletchley crew.

 

Yes you cracked Enigma,

But because of societies stigma,

The secret you could not hide,

Led ultimately to your suicide.