Alan Turing
In Our Time15 Okt 2020

Alan Turing

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alan Turing (1912-1954) whose 1936 paper On Computable Numbers effectively founded computer science. Immediately recognised by his peers, his wider reputation has grown as our reliance on computers has grown. He was a leading figure at Bletchley Park in the Second World War, using his ideas for cracking enemy codes, work said to have shortened the war by two years and saved millions of lives. That vital work was still secret when Turing was convicted in 1952 for having a sexual relationship with another man for which he was given oestrogen for a year, or chemically castrated. Turing was to kill himself two years later. The immensity of his contribution to computing was recognised in the 1960s by the creation of the Turing Award, known as the Nobel of computer science, and he is to be the new face on the £50 note.

With

Leslie Ann Goldberg Professor of Computer Science and Fellow of St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford

Simon Schaffer Professor of the History of Science at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Darwin College

And

Andrew Hodges Biographer of Turing and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Avsnitt(1081)

Psychoanalysis and Literature

Psychoanalysis and Literature

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss role of Freudian analysis in understanding the great works of literature. Freud said, “The poets and philosophers before me discovered the unconscious. What I discovere...

9 Nov 200042min

Evolutionary Psychology

Evolutionary Psychology

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Evolutionary Psychology. Richard Dawkins redefined human nature in 1976, when he wrote in The Selfish Gene: “They swarm in huge colonies, safe inside giant lumbering ro...

2 Nov 200028min

The Tudor State

The Tudor State

Melvyn Bragg and guests discusses the Tudor State. In 1485 Henry Tudor slew Richard III and routed his army at The Battle of Bosworth Field. It was a decisive victory which founded a bold new dynasty...

26 Okt 200042min

Laws of Nature

Laws of Nature

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Laws of Nature. Since ancient times philosophers and physicists have tried to discover simple underlying principles that control the Universe: In the 6th Century BC...

19 Okt 200028min

The Romantics

The Romantics

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideals, exponents and legacy of Romanticism. In the space of a few years around the start of the nineteenth century the Romantic period gave us: Wordsworth, Colerid...

12 Okt 200042min

Hitler in History

Hitler in History

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how history has struggled to explain the enormity of the crimes committed in Germany under Adolf Hitler: we have had theories of ‘totalitarianism’, and of ‘distorted mo...

5 Okt 200042min

London

London

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of London. To T.S.Eliot it was the “Unreal City”, to Wordsworth “Earth has not anything to show more fair” but to Shelley, “Hell is a city much like London”...

28 Sep 200041min

Imagination and Consciousness

Imagination and Consciousness

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the question of consciousness, our sense of self, and how we are able to imagine things when they are not there, which are problems that have troubled the great minds o...

29 Juni 200042min

Populärt inom Historia

massmordarpodden
kod-katastrof
p3-historia
motiv
historiska-brott
olosta-mord
rss-historien-om
historianu-med-urban-lindstedt
historiepodden-se
rss-seriemordarpodden
rss-brottsligt
rss-massmordarpodden
krigshistoriepodden
rss-historiska-brottslingar
nu-blir-det-historia
militarhistoriepodden
harrisons-dramatiska-historia
palmemordet
rss-arkiv-stieg
vetenskapsradion-historia