VEDERE LA SCIENZA 2002

Genova   15/4/2002 - 21/4/2002

Genova - Museo Civico di Storia Naturale "G.Doria" - via Brigata Liguria, 9

X-day - Twentieth century scientific greats: Alan Turing



  1. Author: Enrico Agapito, Luisa Bonolis, Pietro Greco
  2. Director: Enrico Agapito
  3. Scientific Advisor: Pietro Greco
  4. Photography: Franco Bosco, Roberto Pistonesi
  5. Music: Antonio Arena, Lamberto Macchi
  6. Production: Quadro Film per Rai Educational
  7. Italy
  8. 30 min.
  9. 2000

Alan Turing, a complex and difficult life. This documentary relates one of the most fascinating stories of twentieth century mathematics. Scholar of logic and problems of automation, he was involved in the great turning point in calculation methods that occurred in the late 1930s. He designed an ideal machine, known as Turing’s machine, capable of simulating man’s logical thought processes. For this reason, he is still considered one of the forerunners of many studies targeting the creation of artificial intelligence. Later, during the war, he was involved in the study of German secret codes. It was Turing who unveiled the secrets of the famous Enigma machine, used by the Germans to code their messages, so that the British army was able to discover the military plans of enemy.
After the war he was nominated a member of the Scientific Civil Service and, in 1950, he worked with F.C. William and T. Kiburn on the University of Manchester computer. Not so many years later Alan Turing committed suicide. Even if he was a national hero, a prudish UK could not forgive him for being a homosexual and his merits continued to be concealed by Military Intelligence until the early 1970s.

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