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The Turing Guide
''The Turing Guide'', written by Jack Copeland, Jonathan Bowen, Mark Sprevak, Robin Wilson, and others and published in 2017, is a book about the work and life of the British mathematician, philosopher, and early computer scientist, Alan Turing (1912–1954). Overview The book includes 42 contributed chapters by a variety of authors, including some contemporaries of Alan Turing. The book was published in January 2017 by Oxford University Press, in hardcover, paperback, and e-book formats. Contents ''The Turing Guide'' is divided into eight main parts, covering various aspects of Alan Turing's life and work: # ''Biography'': Biographical aspects of Alan Turing. # ''The Universal Machine and Beyond'': Turing's universal machine (now known as a Turing machine), developed while at King's College, Cambridge, which provides a theoretical framework for reasoning about computation, a starting point for the field of theoretical computer science. # ''Codebreaker'': Turing's work on cod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Copeland
Brian John Copeland (born 1950) is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, and author of books on the computing pioneer Alan Turing. Education Copeland was educated at the University of Oxford, obtaining a Bachelor of Philosophy degree and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1978, where he undertook research on modal logic and non-classical logic supervised by of Dana Scott. Career and research Jack Copeland is the Director of the Turing Archive for the History of Computing, an extensive online archive on the computing pioneer Alan Turing. He has also written and edited books on Turing. He is one of the people responsible for identifying the concept of hypercomputation and machines more capable than Turing machines. With Jason Long he restored some of the first computer music recorded on the Ferranti Mark I. Copeland has held visiting professorships at the University of Sydney, Australia (1997, 2002), the University of Aarhus, Denmark ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the city. King's was founded in 1441 by King Henry VI soon after he had founded its sister institution at Eton College. Initially, King's accepted only students from Eton College. However, the king's plans for King's College were disrupted by the Wars of the Roses and the resultant scarcity of funds, and then his eventual deposition. Little progress was made on the project until 1508, when King Henry VII began to take an interest in the college, probably as a political move to legitimise his new position. The building of the college's chapel, begun in 1446, was finished in 1544 during the reign of Henry VIII. King's College Chapel is regarded as one of the finest examples of late English Gothic architecture. It has the world's largest fan vaul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ferranti Mark 1
The Ferranti Mark 1, also known as the Manchester Electronic Computer in its sales literature, and thus sometimes called the Manchester Ferranti, was produced by British electrical engineering firm Ferranti Ltd. It was the world's first commercially available general-purpose digital computer. It was "the tidied up and commercialised version of the Manchester Mark I". The first machine was delivered to the Victoria University of Manchester in February 1951 (publicly demonstrated in July) ahead of the UNIVAC I, which was sold to the United States Census Bureau on 31 March 1951, although not delivered until late December the following year. History and specifications Based on the Manchester Mark 1, which was designed at the University of Manchester by Freddie Williams and Tom Kilburn, the machine was built by Ferranti of the United Kingdom. The main improvements over it were in the size of the primary and secondary storage, a faster multiplier, and additional instructions. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manchester Mark 1
The Manchester Mark 1 was one of the earliest stored-program computers, developed at the Victoria University of Manchester, England from the Manchester Baby (operational in June 1948). Work began in August 1948, and the first version was operational by April 1949; a program written to search for Mersenne primes ran error-free for nine hours on the night of 16/17 June 1949. The machine's successful operation was widely reported in the British press, which used the phrase "electronic brain" in describing it to their readers. That description provoked a reaction from the head of the University of Manchester's Department of Neurosurgery, the start of a long-running debate as to whether an electronic computer could ever be truly creative. The Mark 1 was to provide a computing resource within the university, to allow researchers to gain experience in the practical use of computers, but it very quickly also became a prototype on which the design of Ferranti's commercial version could ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manchester Baby
The Manchester Baby, also called the Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), was the first electronic stored-program computer. It was built at the University of Manchester by Frederic Calland Williams, Frederic C. Williams, Tom Kilburn, and Geoff Tootill, and ran its first program on 21 June 1948. The Baby was not intended to be a practical computing engine, but was instead designed as a testbed for the Williams tube, the first truly random-access memory. Described as "small and primitive" 50 years after its creation, it was the first working machine to contain all the elements essential to a modern electronic digital computer. As soon as the Baby had demonstrated the feasibility of its design, a project was initiated at the university to develop it into a full scale operational machine, the . The Mark 1 in turn quickly became the prototype for the Ferranti Mark 1, the world's first commercially available general-purpose computer. The Baby had a 32-bit Word (computer architect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pilot ACE
The Pilot ACE (Automatic Computing Engine) was one of the first computers built in the United Kingdom. Built at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the early 1950s, it was also one of the earliest general-purpose, stored-program computers – joining other UK designs like the Manchester Mark 1 and EDSAC of the same era. It was a preliminary version of the full ACE, which was designed by Alan Turing, who left NPL before the construction was completed. History Pilot ACE was built to a cut down version of Turing's full ACE design. After Turing left NPL (in part because he was disillusioned by the lack of progress on building the ACE), James H. Wilkinson took over the project. Donald Davies, Harry Huskey and Mike Woodger were involved with the design. The Pilot ACE ran its first program on 10 May 1950, and was demonstrated to the press in November 1950. Although originally intended as a prototype, it became clear that the machine was a potentially useful resource, especiall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ACE Computer
The Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) was a British early electronic serial stored-program computer designed by Alan Turing. It was based on the earlier Pilot ACE. It led to the MOSAIC computer, the Bendix G-15, and other computers. Background The project was managed by John R. Womersley, superintendent of the Mathematics Division of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL). The use of the word ''Engine'' was in homage to Charles Babbage and his Difference Engine and Analytical Engine. Turing's technical design ''Proposed Electronic Calculator'' was the product of his theoretical work in 1936 "On Computable Numbers" (and ) and his wartime experience at Bletchley Park where the Colossus computers had been successful in breaking German military codes. In his 1936 paper, Turing described his idea as a "universal computing machine", but it is now known as the Universal Turing machine. Turing was sought by Womersley to work in the NPL on the ACE project; he accepted and beg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Manchester
, mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria University 1851 – Owens College 1824 – Manchester Mechanics' Institute , endowment = £242.2 million (2021) , budget = £1.10 billion (2020–21) , chancellor = Nazir Afzal (from August 2022) , head_label = President and vice-chancellor , head = Nancy Rothwell , academic_staff = 5,150 (2020) , total_staff = 12,920 (2021) , students = 40,485 (2021) , undergrad = () , postgrad = () , city = Manchester , country = England, United Kingdom , campus = Urban and suburban , colours = Manchester Purple Manchester Yellow , free_label = Scarf , free = , website = , logo = UniOfManchesterLogo.svg , affiliations = Universities Research Association Sutton 30 Russell Group EUA N8 Group NWUA ACUUniversities UK The Universit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the national measurement standards laboratory of the United Kingdom. It is one of the most extensive government laboratories in the UK and has a prestigious reputation for its role in setting and maintaining physical standards for British industry. Founded in 1900, it is one of the oldest metrology institutes in the world. Research and development work at NPL has contributed to the advancement of many disciplines of science, including the development early computers in the late 1940s and 1950s, construction of the first accurate atomic clock in 1955, and the invention and pioneering implementation of packet switching in the 1960s, which is today one of the fundamental technologies of the Internet. The former heads of NPL include many individuals who were pillars of the British scientific establishment. NPL is based at Bushy Park in Teddington, west London. It is under the management of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bombe
The bombe () was an electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The US Navy and US Army later produced their own machines to the same functional specification, albeit engineered differently both from each other and from Polish and British bombes. The British bombe was developed from a device known as the " bomba" ( pl, bomba kryptologiczna), which had been designed in Poland at the Biuro Szyfrów (Cipher Bureau) by cryptologist Marian Rejewski, who had been breaking German Enigma messages for the previous seven years, using it and earlier machines. The initial design of the British bombe was produced in 1939 at the UK Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park by Alan Turing, with an important refinement devised in 1940 by Gordon Welchman. The engineering design and construction was the work of Harold Keen of the British Tabulating Machine Company. The first bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following 1883 for the financier and politician Sir Herbert Leon in the Victorian Gothic, Tudor, and Dutch Baroque styles, on the site of older buildings of the same name. During World War II, the estate housed the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), which regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powersmost importantly the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. The GC&CS team of codebreakers included Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman, Hugh Alexander, Bill Tutte, and Stuart Milner-Barry. The nature of the work at Bletchley remained secret until many years after the war. According to the official historian of British Intelligence, the "Ultra" intelligence produced at Bletchley shortened the war by two to four years, and without it th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
