Washington Post article about Turing
On the front page of today's Washington Post is an article by Joel Achenbach about Turing's 1936 paper and its influence on computer science. All well and good, except later on he quotes the Chair of the Computer Science Department at Princeton as saying "...Turing invented computer science and John von Neumann built the first stored-program computer." An example of The Matthew Effect ("them that's got shall have; them that's not shall lose"). Overall, Achenbach has written an very good summary of Turing's contributions. He also gets one thing right (unless I am mistaken): we really don't know to what extent von Neumann and Turing discussed these concepts when both were at Princeton.
You can understand Turing being held up as the "inventor" of computer science. His theoretical contributions are on the level of discovering atoms in chemistry or developing set theory in mathematics. But, as my mother says, let's let the curtain of charity fall on the other claim. - Bill ________________________________________ From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [members-bounces@sigcis.org] on behalf of Ceruzzi, Paul [CeruzziP@si.edu] Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2015 8:47 AM To: sigcis Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Washington Post article about Turing On the front page of today's Washington Post is an article by Joel Achenbach about Turing's 1936 paper and its influence on computer science. All well and good, except later on he quotes the Chair of the Computer Science Department at Princeton as saying "...Turing invented computer science and John von Neumann built the first stored-program computer." An example of The Matthew Effect ("them that's got shall have; them that's not shall lose"). Overall, Achenbach has written an very good summary of Turing's contributions. He also gets one thing right (unless I am mistaken): we really don't know to what extent von Neumann and Turing discussed these concepts when both were at Princeton.
Thanks, Paul. Below is the link to the article for those who do not have access to it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/what-imitation-game-di... John John Impagliazzo, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Hofstra University IEEE Life Fellow ACM Distinguished Educator Editor-in-Chief, ACM Inroads From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Ceruzzi, Paul Sent: Saturday, 21 February, 2015 08:47 To: sigcis Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Washington Post article about Turing On the front page of today's Washington Post is an article by Joel Achenbach about Turing's 1936 paper and its influence on computer science. All well and good, except later on he quotes the Chair of the Computer Science Department at Princeton as saying "...Turing invented computer science and John von Neumann built the first stored-program computer." An example of The Matthew Effect ("them that's got shall have; them that's not shall lose"). Overall, Achenbach has written an very good summary of Turing's contributions. He also gets one thing right (unless I am mistaken): we really don't know to what extent von Neumann and Turing discussed these concepts when both were at Princeton.
I consider this interview and the article to be nothing more than PR puffery on the part of Princeton. Isaacson is quoted as saying that Turing did not invent the automatic electronic digital computer, but somehow the article goes on to give as much glory as possible to Princeton but never mention the names of those Isaacson said were the real inventors--John Mauchly and Presper Eckert. They built ENIAC before there was any clear technology in which to store a program, and, after the ENIAC design was frozen, they and several others at Penn set out to develop the architecture of a next-generation stored-program computer that they named EDVAC. At some point von Neumann, who had never seen a computer before, joined the group and contributed to its thinking, and he volunteered to write up their conclusions, which were issued in a typed (and widely distributed) paper that bore his name alone. Von Neumann was, as I believe the article calls him, a protean genius, but attributing the stored-program concept to him is, indeed, an example of the Matthew Effect gone wild. ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Impagliazzo" <John.Impagliazzo@Hofstra.edu> To: "Paul Ceruzzi" <CeruzziP@si.edu>, "sigcis" <members@sigcis.org> Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2015 2:02:42 AM Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Washington Post article about Turing Thanks, Paul. Below is the link to the article for those who do not have access to it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/what-imitation-game-di... John John Impagliazzo , Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Hofstra University IEEE Life Fellow ACM Distinguished Educator Editor-in-Chief, ACM Inroads From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Ceruzzi, Paul Sent: Saturday, 21 February, 2015 08:47 To: sigcis Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Washington Post article about Turing On the front page of today's Washington Post is an article by Joel Achenbach about Turing's 1936 paper and its influence on computer science. All well and good, except later on he quotes the Chair of the Computer Science Department at Princeton as saying "...Turing invented computer science and John von Neumann built the first stored-program computer." An example of The Matthew Effect ("them that's got shall have; them that's not shall lose"). Overall, Achenbach has written an very good summary of Turing's contributions. He also gets one thing right (unless I am mistaken): we really don't know to what extent von Neumann and Turing discussed these concepts when both were at Princeton. _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
BTW, Merton’s original Mathew Effect paper is available here: http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/merton/matthew1.pdf Dag On Feb 24, 2015, at 5:44 PM, PeterEckstein@comcast.net<mailto:PeterEckstein@comcast.net> wrote: I consider this interview and the article to be nothing more than PR puffery on the part of Princeton. Isaacson is quoted as saying that Turing did not invent the automatic electronic digital computer, but somehow the article goes on to give as much glory as possible to Princeton but never mention the names of those Isaacson said were the real inventors--John Mauchly and Presper Eckert. They built ENIAC before there was any clear technology in which to store a program, and, after the ENIAC design was frozen, they and several others at Penn set out to develop the architecture of a next-generation stored-program computer that they named EDVAC. At some point von Neumann, who had never seen a computer before, joined the group and contributed to its thinking, and he volunteered to write up their conclusions, which were issued in a typed (and widely distributed) paper that bore his name alone. Von Neumann was, as I believe the article calls him, a protean genius, but attributing the stored-program concept to him is, indeed, an example of the Matthew Effect gone wild. ________________________________ From: "John Impagliazzo" <John.Impagliazzo@Hofstra.edu<mailto:John.Impagliazzo@Hofstra.edu>> To: "Paul Ceruzzi" <CeruzziP@si.edu<mailto:CeruzziP@si.edu>>, "sigcis" <members@sigcis.org<mailto:members@sigcis.org>> Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2015 2:02:42 AM Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Washington Post article about Turing Thanks, Paul. Below is the link to the article for those who do not have access to it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/what-imitation-game-di... John John Impagliazzo, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Hofstra University IEEE Life Fellow ACM Distinguished Educator Editor-in-Chief, ACM Inroads From: members-bounces@sigcis.org<mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org> [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Ceruzzi, Paul Sent: Saturday, 21 February, 2015 08:47 To: sigcis Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Washington Post article about Turing On the front page of today's Washington Post is an article by Joel Achenbach about Turing's 1936 paper and its influence on computer science. All well and good, except later on he quotes the Chair of the Computer Science Department at Princeton as saying "...Turing invented computer science and John von Neumann built the first stored-program computer." An example of The Matthew Effect ("them that's got shall have; them that's not shall lose"). Overall, Achenbach has written an very good summary of Turing's contributions. He also gets one thing right (unless I am mistaken): we really don't know to what extent von Neumann and Turing discussed these concepts when both were at Princeton. _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org<mailto:members@sigcis.org>, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org<mailto:members@sigcis.org>, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
participants (5)
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Ceruzzi, Paul -
Dag Spicer -
John Impagliazzo -
McMillan, William W -
PeterEckstein＠comcast.net