Talk:Alan Turing

Known For section to short

The 'known for' section should definitely give mention of his contribution to computational biology. TheGrandmother (talk) 09:47, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

misleading wording about letter to Churchill

The article currently says:

• The effect was electric. Churchill wrote a memo to General Ismay which read: "ACTION THIS DAY. Make sure they have all they want..."

This is misleading. The team did not receive a copy of this Churchill action, and only learned indirectly of the success of their letter to him.

If the article was not locked down and I had the power, I would take out "The effect was electric." And then insert about there wording like this:

The team only learned indirectly over time how successful this plea was: "All that we did notice was that almost from that day the rough ways began miraculously to be made smooth." (P. S. Milner-Barry, ‘‘‘Action This Day’’: The Letter from Bletchley Park Cryptanalysts to the Prime Minister, 21 October 1941’ quoted in www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~aar/turingletter.pdf) -71.174.175.150 (talk) 23:44, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree it was misleading and I've reworded this passage to be clearer and to include the Milner-Barry quote. I left in the 'electric effect' bit but explicitly quoted it to Andrew Hodges, since what was there was too close to his language to be a paraphrase. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:03, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Spies

The article says:

At the time, there was acute public anxiety about homosexual entrapment of spies by Soviet agents, because of the recent exposure of the first two members of the Cambridge Five, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, as KGB double agents.

This seems anachronistic. The "exposure" of Burgess and Maclean was not until 1956, after Turing died. Until their press conference in Moscow, they were officially "missing diplomats" and it was only speculative that they had defected to the USSR. Burgess was homosexual, but Maclean wasn't. I don't know whether Burgess's homosexuality was well-known at that time.--Jack Upland (talk) 17:02, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

imitation game

If you have read the original Turing article, the essence of the game is imitation, or includes it as a major component. I think the current description adds to the moras of misunderstanding of people who have read the title of the paper but not the paper itself. I'd edit, btu the page appears locked. whoever updates this page should read the original paper, and I would then suggest that they would see the need to include imitatation, which along with Turing, it think is an essential part of intelligence. 146.186.238.35 (talk) 21:08, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

relationship wiht Christopher Morcom

part of the article notes important friendship, figure caption notes lover. perhaps should be consistent, perhaps left ambiguous 146.186.238.35 (talk) 21:11, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 January 2015

Under the section, "Portrayal in adaptations," please add information about an opera in development about Alan Turing's life. I suggest adding the following text:

In 2012, in honor of the Turing Centennial, American Lyric Theater commissioned an operatic exploration of the life and death of Alan Turing from composer Justine F. Chen and librettist David Simpatico. Titled The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing, the opera is a historical fantasia on the life of the brilliant scientist. The opera will receive a concert performance in October 2015 in NYC. In November 2014, the opera and several other artistic works inspired by Turing's life were featured on Studio 360.

Done HiDrNick! 19:00, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 25 January 2015

Under the section "Hut 8 and Naval Enigma" there is a quote, but it is not marked as a quote in any way and is therefore difficult to read due to the sudden context change. This should be modified so that it is clear what text is quoted.

Done Thank you. Mlpearc (open channel) 08:55, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 February 2015

Middle Name is actually Matheson Not Mathison Jjpaula (talk) 20:08, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Another request (unrelated; I'm another editor): please internally link the first mention of "Churchill" to Winston Churchill. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 20:15, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

 Done. Full name at first instance and now linked. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:32, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Martinevans123. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 22:24, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Not done: @Jjpaula: please provide reliable sources that support the changes you want to be made (see also, [1]). @82.136.210.153: Winston Churchill is already linked in Delilah sub-section of article. We usually do not link a term more than once in an article. Anupmehra -Let's talk! 21:03, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Anupmehra, per WP:LINK and WP:COMMONSENSE we link the term's first occurrence in the article's text. The first occurrence is before the Delilah section. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 21:11, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

In a long article there's often a reasonable case for linking more than once. I've now added full name and linked at first instance. The second is still there also. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:30, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Belief in the afterlife removed?

I recall one of his religious views being of which after his best friend's death he became an atheist but simultaneously kept the belief that consciousness can survive after death - this snippet was also cited and linked to a credible source. So why was it removed?

Here's an old screencapture of the paragraph I'm pertaining to:

---

He became an atheist and adopted the conviction that all phenomena, including the workings of the human brain, must be materialistic,[21] but he still believed in the survival of the spirit after death.[22][/i]

---

Citation: The Inspiration of Life and Death, 1928–1932 Alan Turing Scrapbook

http://web.archive.org/web/20130424185723/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#cite_note-22

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Pentrazemine (talk • contribs) 04:40, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

suggested edit - add the definition ("Completely Automated Program For Telling Computers and Humans Apart") when you mention "CAPTCHA"

Some people do not know what this acronym stands for so you should apell it out, parenthetically, here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.77.111.16 (talk) 23:10, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 February 2015

There is a citation needed behind The Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia has a lecture room named "Turing Auditorium" line. Here below is a link from official university webpage confirming the name. http://is.stuba.sk/mistnosti/?zobrazit_mistnost=2472;areal=2;budova=172;klic=2472;mistnostpodrobne=1;lang=en 87.197.160.239 (talk) 12:11, 28 February 2015 (UTC)