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Mathematician Sees Artistic Side to Father of Computer
Did Alan Turing's 1936 paper 'On Computable Numbers' influence the early history of computer building?
In a book to be published later this year, University of Chicago mathematician Robert Soare proposes that Alan Turing's design for the modern computer was an artistic as well as a scientific achievement.
Soare says Turing's landmark 1936 paper on computability theory contains beauty as well as scientific breakthroughs, comparing the concepts to Michelangelo's Statue of David. "Michelangelo and Turing both completely transcended conventional approaches, [creating] something completely new from their own visions, something which went far beyond the achievements of their contemporaries," he writes.
Soare is leading a charge to revive Turing's view of computing. "He has single-handedly produced what we now see as a 'Turing Renaissance,' which makes his work on computability and art specially interesting and appropriate," says Barry Cooper, who is editing the book "Alan Turing--His Work and Impact."
In the book, Soare argues that mathematicians are like artists in that they choose which problems to work on according to taste and beauty. He also discusses Turing's invention of the universal machine. "The universal machine simulated any other Turing machine because it took as inputs the program for that machine and an arbitrary input, and processed that input just as the given program would have done," Soare notes.
From UChicago News
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