Chapter 3.3 Good For

This assignment is due 48 hours after the Chapter Test is given.

• Good Fors' solutions can be turned in anytime before 5:00 PM two days after the Chapter Test.
• Good Fors are worth 10 points of extra credit each.
• Answers must be accompanied by valid reasoning. Just like the tests, the answer alone isn't enough!
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Cryptology is the science of making and breaking enciphered information. One of the most famous ciphering machines was called the Enigma. It was the major code machine used by the German forces during World War II. Hitler believed that the Enigma codes were unbreakable because the machine was capable of being set up in a vast number of ways to encipher a message. On just three rotors of the machine this came to 150,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible combinations.

In order to read an enciphered German message, the British code breakers had to find which one of the vast number of settings had been used -- a near impossible task for the human brain. To tackle this problem, Alan Mathison Turing (1912 - 1954, a British mathematician and the founder of the theory of computation, computability, and modern computer science) designed the Turing Bombe, which was a powerful deciphering search engine.

A Turing Machine is a simple imaginary device invented by Alan Turing before computers existed. The Turing Machine basically consists of a tape, a read-write head, and a program. Turing showed that computation could be satisfied by a machine that consisted of a tape of unlimited length with little square cells, and a device with a finite number of states that could read symbols from the tape. Based on that symbol and current state, it could write another symbol over the current symbol and change the current state. Finally, it could move left or right on the tape.

Alan Turing was born at Paddington, London. His father, Julius Mathison Turing, was a British member of the Indian Civil Service and he was often abroad. Alan's mother, Ethel Sara Stoney, was the daughter of the chief engineer of the Madras railways and Alan's parents had met and married in India. When Alan was about one year old his mother rejoined her husband in India, leaving Alan in England with friends of the family. Alan was sent to school but did not seem to be achieving academically, so he was removed from the school after a few months.

Next he was sent to Hazlehurst Preparatory School where he seemed to be an average to good pupil in most subjects but was greatly taken up with following his own ideas. He became interested in chess while at this school and he joined the debating society. Now 1926 was the year of the general strike and when the strike was in progress Turing cycled 60 miles to the school from his home, not too demanding a task for Turing who later was to become a fine athlete of almost Olympic standard. He found it very difficult to fit into what was expected at this public school. Many of the most original thinkers have found conventional schooling an almost incomprehensible process and this seems to have been the case for Turing. His genius drove him in his own directions rather than those required by his teachers.

In 1938, he received his Ph.D. at Princeton University. His specialties were probability and logic. The use of mathematical logic by Turing to decipher the Enigma messages is considered by most scientific historian to be one of the most important scientific works during the war, second only to the development of the atomic bomb. Turing was also a top-ranked competitive cross-country runner who due to an injury was not considered for the British team in the 1948 Olympic Games.

In 1950, Alan Turing wrote a paper entitled "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". Turing set out to consider the question "Can machines think?" by proposing a test for intelligence. Turing held that computers would in time be programmed to acquire abilities rivaling human intelligence, acknowledging the difficulty people would have accepting such a machine, a problem that still plagues artificial intelligence today. In his mind, there was nothing the brain could do that a well-designed computer could not.

In 1952, the British government, which awarded Turing the highest civilian medal of honor during the war, convicted him of being homosexual under an antiquated law.

In 1952, Alan Turing went to the police because he was being threatened with blackmail. After making his police report, Turing was arrested for violation of British homosexuality laws when he confessed to police the details of his sexual relationships with another man. Turing, wanting to be open, made no serious denial about his sexuality. Offering no defense other than that he saw no wrong in his actions, was convicted as a homosexual. As an alternative to prison, he was given injections of oestogen intended to eliminate his sexual drive.

During the Cold War, homosexuals were considered a security risk and after Turing's conviction, he became ineligible for security clearance. In addition, security officers were extremely worried that Turing with complete knowledge of decoding secretes was now labeled a security risk. Alan Turing had many foreign colleagues, as any academic would, the police began to investigate his foreign visitors. A vacation to Greece in 1953, could not have pleased the security officers.

Alan Turing was found at home by his cleaning lady, he had died of potassium cyanide poisoning on June 7, 1954. The cyanide was found on a partially eaten apple next to his bed. His mother claims he had accidentally poisoned himself while conducting electrolysis experiments; however, the medical examiner concluded suicide. Others claim he had killed himself to prevent embarrassment about his homosexuality while successfully contriving his death to allow his mother alone to believe it was an accident.

References

Check out these resources for additional information:

Crockett, Larry J. The Turing Test and the Frame Problem. Ablex Publishing Company, 1994, New Jersey.

Hinsley, F. H., Alan Stripp. Codebreakers. Oxford University Press, 1993, New York.

Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing: The Enigma, Simon & Schuster,1983, New York.

Don't forget to explain your answer as clearly as possible.

Question: Do you believe a machine think? Explain under what conditions this would be possible.

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