Algorithmic lens as Alan Turing’s wider impact

Today is Alan Turing’s birthday. He would have turned 106.

It has been too long since I last wrote about him on TheEGG. Today, I want to provide an overview of some of his most important work based on my and other’s answers on this old cstheory question. This will build slightly on a post I wrote two years ago for the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, but it will share a lot of text in common.

Turing is far from obscure. Every computer scientist and programmer has heard his name. The Nobel prize of Computer Science is named after him. He has even joined the ranks of mathematicians with feature-length films. Although a film that misrepresents much history. But even outside of film, I feel that our perceptions and representations of Turing are shaped too heavily by the current boundaries and constraints of computer science. Or at least how computer science is popularly (mis)understood.

Also, it is just easier to film the building a giant machine than about proving theorems and revolutionizing how we think about the world.

As the great breadth of his work shows, Turing would not recognize the disciplinary boundaries that confine computer science to technology. Like Abel Molina, he would see many motivations for computer science, from Science and Technology to Mathematics and Philosophy to Society. Turing viewed the whole world through the algorithmic lens. A wide ambition that is sometimes lacking in modern computer science.

In this post, I want to highlight some of the aspects of the world that Turing looked at.