The Alan Turing Year, 2012, marked the celebration of the life and scientific influence of

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical com ...

during the centenary of his birth on 23 June 1912. Turing had an important influence on

computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, e ...

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

developmental biology Developmental biology is the study of the process by which animals and plants grow and develop. Developmental biology also encompasses the biology of Regeneration (biology), regeneration, asexual reproduction, metamorphosis, and the growth and di ...

, and the mathematical

theory of computability Computability theory, also known as recursion theory, is a branch of mathematical logic, computer science, and the theory of computation that originated in the 1930s with the study of computable functions and Turing degrees. The field has since e ...

and made important contributions to code-breaking during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The Alan Turing Centenary Advisory committee (TCAC) was originally set up by Professor Barry Cooper The international impact of Turing's work is reflected in the list of countries in which Alan Turing Year was celebrated, including:

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

U.K. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and the

U.S.A. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

41+ countries were involved.

Events

David Chalmers, delivering a talk at De La Salle University-Manila, March 27, 2012

A number of major events took place throughout the year. Some of these were linked to places with special significance in Turing's life, such as

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, the

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 Univer ...

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 ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. The ACM was involved from June to September 2012. Twelve museums were involved including in Germany and Brazil. Artists, musicians and poets took part in the celebrations internationally. Events included the 2012

Computability in Europe The Association Computability in Europe (ACiE) is an international organization of mathematicians, logicians, computer scientists, philosophers, theoretical physicists and others interested in new developments in computability and in their underly ...

conference, as well as Turing Centenary activities organized or sponsored by the

British Computer Society Sir Maurice Wilkes served as the first President of BCS in 1957 BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, known as the British Computer Society until 2009, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in infor ...

, the

Association for Symbolic Logic The Association for Symbolic Logic (ASL) is an international organization of specialists in mathematical logic and philosophical logic. The ASL was founded in 1936, and its first president was Alonzo Church. The current president of the ASL is ...

, British Colloquium for Theoretical Computer Science, the

British Society for the History of Mathematics The British Society for the History of Mathematics (BSHM) was founded in 1971 to promote research into the history of mathematics at all levels and to further the use of the history of mathematics in education. The BSHM is concerned with all peri ...

, the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

, British Logic Colloquium,

Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour or SSAISB or AISB is a nonprofit, scientific society devoted to advancing the scientific understanding of the mechanisms underlying thought and intelligent behaviou ...

, the

Computer Conservation Society The Computer Conservation Society (CCS) is a British organisation, founded in 1989. It is under the joint umbrella of the British Computer Society (BCS), the London Science Museum and the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. Overview The ...

, the

Computer Society of India Computer Society of India is a body of computer professionals in India. It was started on 6 March 1965 by a few computer professionals and has now grown to be the national body representing computer professionals. It has 72 chapters across India ...

, the

Trust, the European Association for Computer Science Logic, the

European Association for Theoretical Computer Science The European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) is an international organization with a European focus, founded in 1972. Its aim is to facilitate the exchange of ideas and results among theoretical computer scientists as well as ...

International Association for Computing and Philosophy The International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP) is a professional, philosophical association emerging from a history of conferences that began in 1986. Adopting its mission from these conferences, the IACAP exists in order to prom ...

, the Department of Philosophy at

De La Salle University-Manila De La Salle University ( fil, Pamantasang De La Salle or Unibersidad ng De La Salle), also referred to as DLSU, De La Salle or La Salle, is a private university, private, Catholic Church, Catholic coeducational research university run by the I ...

, the

John Templeton Foundation The John Templeton Foundation (Templeton Foundation) is a philanthropic organization that reflects the ideas of its founder, John Templeton, who became wealthy via a career as a contrarian investor, and wanted to support progress in religious an ...

, the

Kurt Gödel Society The Kurt Gödel Society was founded in Vienna, Austria in 1987. It is an international organization aimed at promoting research primarily on logic, philosophy and the history of mathematics, with special attention to connections with Kurt Gödel, ...

, the

IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science The ACM–IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS) is an annual academic conference on the theory and practice of computer science in relation to mathematical logic. Extended versions of selected papers of each year's conference appear i ...

, the

Science Museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in mu ...

, and Turing100in2012. The

Alan Turing Centenary Conference The Alan Turing Centenary Conference was an academic conference celebrating the life and research of Alan Turing by bringing together distinguished scientists to understand and analyse the history and development of Computer Science and Artifici ...

was held at the

during June 2012. Alan Turing Year is known on Twitter as Alan Turing Years. @alanturingyear.

Organisers

The Turing Year was coordinated by the Turing Centenary Advisory Committee (TCAC), representing a range of expertise and organisational involvement in the 2012 celebrations. Members of TCAC include Honorary President, Sir John Dermot Turing; The Chair and founder of the committee, mathematician and author of Alan Turing - His Work and Impact

S. Barry Cooper S. Barry Cooper (9 October 1943 – 26 October 2015) was an English mathematician and computability theory, computability theorist. He was a professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Leeds. Early life and education Cooper grew up in ...

; Turing's biographer

Andrew Hodges Andrew Philip Hodges (; born 1949) is a British mathematician, author and emeritus senior research fellow at Wadham College, Oxford. Education Hodges was born in London in 1949 and educated at Birkbeck, University of London where he was awarded ...

;

Wendy Hall Dame Wendy Hall (born 25 October 1952) is a British computer scientist. She is Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton. Early life and education Wendy Hall was born in west London and educated at Ealing Grammar ...

, first person from outside North America elected President of the

(ACM) in July 2008;

Simon Singh Simon Lehna Singh, (born 19 September 1964) is a British popular science author, theoretical and particle physicist. His written works include ''Fermat's Last Theorem'' (in the United States titled ''Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve th ...

; Hugh Loebner sponsor of the

Loebner Prize The Loebner Prize was an annual competition in artificial intelligence that awards prizes to the computer programs considered by the judges to be the most human-like. The prize is reported as defunct since 2020. The format of the competition was tha ...

for Artificial Intelligence (annual science contest based on the famous

Turing test The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine's ability to artificial intelligence, exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Turing propos ...

) cyberneticist

Kevin Warwick Kevin Warwick (born 9 February 1954) is an English engineer and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at Coventry University. He is known for his studies on direct interfaces between computer systems and the human nervous system, and has also done ...

, author of 'March of the Machines' and 'I, Cyborg', and committee member Daniela Derbyshire, who is also handling international co-ordination of marketing and publicity.

UK publicity

Examples include: * The

Royal Mail , kw, Postya Riel, ga, An Post Ríoga , logo = Royal Mail.svg , logo_size = 250px , type = Public limited company , traded_as = , foundation = , founder = Henry VIII , location = London, England, UK , key_people = * Keith Williams ...

issued a UK

commemorative stamp A commemorative stamp is a postage stamp, often issued on a significant date such as an anniversary, to honor or commemorate a place, event, person, or object. The ''subject'' of the commemorative stamp is usually spelled out in print, unlike def ...

for the Turing Centenary. * The Imitation Game: how Benedict Cumberbatch brought Turing to life,

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

, Tuesday, 7 October 2014. * De-coding the Turing family, Prof. Barry Cooper, The Guardian, Tue 17 April 2012. * Alan Turing Year - the Establishment still doesn't get it, Prof. Barry Cooper, The Guardian, Tuesday, 22 January 2013. * Alan Turing and the bullying of Britain's geeks, Prof. Barry Cooper, The Guardian, Wednesday, 20 June 2012. * Playing Monopoly with Alan Turing, Prof. Barry Cooper, The Guardian, Monday, 24 September 2012. * Alan Turing: "I am building a brain." Half a century later, its successor beat Kasparov, Prof. Barry Cooper, The Guardian, Monday 14 May 2012. * Google doodle becomes an enigma in honour of Alan Turing,

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

, Saturday 23 June 2012. * Blinc digital arts festival's tribute to Alan Turing,

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

, Saturday, 27 October 2012. * The other Turing test: Codebreaker's beloved Monopoly pays him the ultimate compliment,

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

, Saturday 8 September 2012. * Maths and nature link 'proven' by Manchester scientists, BBC News, 28 October 2012. * How did the leopard get its spots? Codebreaker Alan Turing was right all along, The Daily Telegraph. * The Queen hails 'genius' of Alan Turing on visit to WWII codebreaking HQ at Bletchley Park,

Manchester Evening News The ''Manchester Evening News'' (''MEN'') is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in North West England, founded in 1868. It is published Monday–Saturday; a Sunday edition, the ''MEN on Sunday'', was launched in February 201 ...

, Friday, 15 July 2011.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Alan Turing Year/TCAC websiteAlan Turing Year 2012 at mathcompCiE 2012:Turing Centenary Conference website
at the University of Cambridge
Turing 2012: The Life and Works of Alan Turing
at De La Salle University-Manila
The State of Computing: Turing Centenary Conference
in Bangalore, India
Turing 100: Alan Turing Centenary Conference
at the University of Manchester Science and technology in Europe International observances 2012 in science Mathematics conferences Computer science conferences Philosophy events

Year A year or annus is the orbital period of a planetary body, for example, the Earth, moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by change in weather, the hou ...