Alan Turing's Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science; April 1999; Scientific American Magazine; by Copeland, Proudfoot; 6 Page(s)

Alan Mathison Turing conceived of the modern computer in 1935. Today all digital computers are, in essence, "Turing machines." The British mathematician also pioneered the field of artificial intelligence, or AI, proposing the famous and widely debated Turing test as a way of determining whether a suitably programmed computer can think. During World War II, Turing was instrumental in breaking the German Enigma code in part of a top-secret British operation that historians say shortened the war in Europe by two years. When he died at the age of 41, Turing was doing the earliest work on what would now be called artificial life, simulating the chemistry of biological growth.

Throughout his remarkable career, Turing had no great interest in publicizing his ideas. Consequently, important aspects of his work have been neglected or forgotten over the years. In particular, few people-even those knowledgeable about computer science-are familiar with Turing's fascinating anticipation of connectionism, or neuronlike computing. Also neglected are his groundbreaking theoretical concepts in the exciting area of "hypercomputation." According to some experts, hypercomputers might one day solve problems heretofore deemed intractable.