Alan Turing: Virtuosity and visualisation

Abstract

Alan Turing (1912–1954) has been increasingly recognised as an important mathematician who, despite his short life, developed mathematical ideas that today have led to foundational aspects of computer science, especially with respect to computability, artificial intelligence and morphogenesis (the growth of biological patterns, important in mathematical biology). Some of Turing’s mathematics and related ideas can be visualised in interesting and even artistic ways, aided using software. In addition, a significant corpus of the historical documentation on Turing can now be accessed online as a number of major archives have digitised material related to Turing. This paper introduces some of the major scientific work of Turing and ways in which it can be visualised, often artistically. Turing’s fame has, especially since his centenary in 2012, reached a level where he has had a cultural influence on the arts in general. Although the story of Turing can be seen as one of tragedy, with his life cut short, from a historical viewpoint Turing’s contribution to humankind has been triumphant.

Contributors

Jonathan P. Bowen: http://www.jpbowen.com

Conference

Publication date: July 2016

Publication date (Print): July 2016

Pages: 197-204

Affiliations

[1 ] London South Bank University, UK & Museophile Limited, Oxford, UK

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/EVA2016.40

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts

Conference acronym: EVA

Conference number:

Conference location: London, UK

Conference date: 12 - 14 July 2016

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts

Product

Product Information: 1477-9358BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/EVA2016.40

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

Categories

Series title: Electronic Workshops in Computing