Alan Turing: Crash Course Computer Science #15

[@mikeoxsbigg1]

If only the world treated him better than the gifts he gave us.

[@Ty6260]

Mike Oxsbigg Aww man this comment got me for some reason

[@pet3590]

Imagine what​ more he could have done for the world if he were not mistreated.

[@mikeoxsbigg1]

Sameopet He was looking for patterns in nature near the end.

[@YeoYeo]

+

[@TGC40401]

Some stars do go out :(

[@natasharomanof2543]

He was such a wonderful, great, and brilliant man. RIP Alan Turing

[@pepsiisdead]

TIL CAPTCHA stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart."

[@lostpockets2227]

🤹‍♂️

[@bat-amgalanbat-erdene2621]

TIL TIL stands for Today I've Learned

[@TheDeadEyeSamurai]

JARVIS Just A Very Intelligent System

[@sudeepjoseph69]

@@TheDeadEyeSamurai That says JAVIS my guy

[@aaraucod]

On his last days he got interested in biology and shape patterns in nature. We will always wonder if he would had come up with another breakthrough idea from that.

[@Lala47362]

AleAlejandro this is really sad

[@tonycatman]

Actually, he wrote a great paper on the subject.

[@narogen3431]

He finished his first paper on the subject the day before he went to prison, its worth a read.

[@guyremote4220]

I'm crying just to hear about the sad ending of Turing. Feel so sorry for how humanity lost such a brilliant scientist!

[@psjw12]

Thank you for mentioning the story on Turing's sexuality and how he was treated. It's a hugely important part of how we know him today. It's also worth mentioning that in 2013 the Alan Turning law was passed in the UK clearing all records of those charged with homosexual offences

[@Implond]

Paul Watson actually, it only allowed them to be cleared if they applied to be cleared. We didn't get the full automatic pardon until this year.

[@eml7382]

Gg I just got gofed

[@TheTariqibnziyad]

@@benjaminshort587 well he would've done way more and we would've been more advanced if he was respected for his sexuality, that's why we should tell his story.

[@jvqn6581]

The amazing thing about the halting problem (and everything that follows from it) is that it makes computer science one of the few disciplines of science that can determine its own boundaries.

[@IbrAhMath]

I'm a simple guy. I see Alan Turing, I give a like.

[@eratonysiad2582]

Please do get started on Crash Course Math.

[@ShaunDreclin]

No do crash course meth

[@ishbanyadav]

Kriso de la Erikejo I don't know why but this seems funny. Anyway you can checkout PatrickJMT. He is amazing at maths

[@void2258]

Crash course math already exists. It's the fundamentals series by 3blue1brown.

[@gabedarrett1301]

+Kriso de la Erikejo Isn't that such a broad topic? The field of mathematics is taught for years at school, so it might be too big to fit into a crash course series. That being said, I'd want it to exist but this is a major hindrance

[@eratonysiad2582]

Gabriel francis Same goes for Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

[@CelloTuning]

And that was my 12.354 failed attempt to understand a Turing Machine.

[@tiborsaas]

12 attempts is not that bad, better luck next time!

[@ganaraminukshuk0]

12354 attempts is a lot; some countries use . as , and , as . Instead of 12-point-five, you'd have 12,5 and instead of twelve thousand three hundred, you'd have 12.300.

[@user-in9mm4ti6d]

this was my 283rd attempt.

[@fishyperil2153]

she just gave an example with a simplified ruleset....imagine if you expanded the ruleset to simulate all the instructions that a modern cpu can execute, what you'd get is a (theoretical) machine capable of executing everything a modern computer can execute. the point of the turing machine is to prove the viability of such a system of computation - that by reading symbols sequentially and manipulating them according to a set of rules, you can compute pretty much anything

[@evad7933]

Crash course videos go too fast.

[@mangeshmandlik3772]

The way you simplify concepts without oversimplifying them is simply brilliant! Thank you for giving us such a great course!

[@unclefkr8945]

"Sometimes it's the people no one imagines anything of, who do the things no one can imagine." - Alan Turing

[@elektrikhd]

Thank you for bringing in Alan Turing's history, and the circumstances of his life and death. This sort of thing was not discussed when I took a computer science course in school 18 years ago, and while I doubt it would've inspired me to the point that I found that computer programming was the thing for me, it would've at least helped me feel more like I was part of society. Even knowing that he was persecuted for who he was, knowing that it's not like that anymore, and having a recent historic example of a gay man doing something important and good would have given me a different outlook for my final years of high school.

[@ravinloon58]

We all need to learn the lessons of history... how much more could Alan Turing have done if he had lived longer, had lived in modern times and been accepted as a genius gay man? How many others were ignored or passed over because they were not born into the right kind of family, were not seen as socially acceptable, were the wrong colour, gender etc? How many people currently work in menial jobs overlooked by decision makers, their insight, knowledge and experience ignored? Alan Turing was not an easy person to work with, he was both misunderstood and disliked, that is not uncommon for a genius. The world would be a better place if we all took a little more time and effort and learned to appreciate those around us.

[@JITCompilation]

@Aidan Collins it's true. he was actually recorded as pretty charming according to actual historical documents. Hollywood is just obsessed with making intelligent people look 'awkward and damaged'.

[@Aragorn1964]

I thought you weren't going to mention his tragic story of how he was forced to have chemical treatments for being gay and he took his life tragically, unable to cope with this treatment. This is a story I believe everyone should know: A gay man is responsible for winning World War Two and saving millions of lives in the process. So hounded for being gay he took his life, and sadly this story is not common to the history curriculum. Imagine how many little gay boys, like myself who went to school under section 28, would have felt if they had learnt that a gay man is responsible for defeating the Nazis and saving the lives of many of their grandparents.

[@Aragorn1964]

It is also testament to the beauty and power of love that it was the death of his first love, a boy at his school, Christopher Morcom, that inspired him. Be nice to people, you never know they might fall in love with you and grow up to save the world.

[@aperson22222]

Is it really necessary to mention his sexuality every single time he comes up in conversation? Seriously, how is that progressive?

[@tiny_M]

The homophobia he faced was truly astounding. I mean, it was WWII, but still. Interestingly, though, there was some question about his death: he was running an experiment at the time that involved the use of cyanide, which he may have inhaled; the apple they thought was poisoned was never tested, and he often left half-eaten apples by his bedside; and he had made plans for the work he was going to do when he got back. Therefore the options are either he killed himself after horrifying treatment at the hands of those he saved, or he died accidentally after braving said horrifying treatment, and those he saved didn't actually put in the effort to look into it much. Two really, really sad possibilities for someone who should've been praised in his time and who never should've faced what he had to face just because of who he was.

[@bee5120]

+aperson22222 It is progressive in a way that it teaches people a very basic yet very important lesson of "not judging a book by its cover". So that next time, when a genius is born and he/she happens to have some quirks that isn't represented or accepted by general society of the time (such as homosexuality), then people will think twice about their hurtful actions. Alan Turing could've possibly contributed more to computer science by today had it not been the unfortunate circumstances that others placed on him then. Who knows, maybe today's computing might've been more advanced than what we have now.

[@DomyTheMad420]

I still hold Christianity and any religion responsible for the actions done in their name in the past thousands of years. It's when you stop mentioning the evils done in the past, when they are often repeated.

[@engineerea]

For the first time in series, I couldnt't grasp the essence of a concept, the concept told between 2:00 and 7:20. Thank you for the huge effort

[@dojokonojo]

I totally did not know that CAPTCHA's were Turing tests. I guess I'm a computer then.

[@ishbanyadav]

What if I say that I just watched The Imitation Game an hour before? PS : Congratulations CrashCourse on reaching 6 million subscribers. Keep inspiring :)

[@sugarfrosted2005]

Mr IY Worst depiction of Turing ever.

[@trey1531]

That movie was hardly about computing and all about how gay he was. Dumb movie.

[@ishbanyadav]

sugarfrosted "The realisation after you watch CrashCourse"

[@iAmTheSquidThing]

Apparently that film is almost entirely fiction, and effectively slanders people who collaborated with Turing by portraying them as his enemies. Learning that really put me off it.

[@zygfrydmierzwinski6041]

You should rember that a lot of facts from imitation game are LIES, because Enigma was broken by Poles two times (the second one when Germans improved coding). Turing didn't done it. Just write in google "BOMBA ENIGMA". This part of history was just a lie (until 2014 when Britain officialy told that polish scientists did it)

[@haydenhollingsworth6777]

"So pretty simple right?" Me: gives up on life 😔

[@via1408]

Just spent 10 minutes understanding Bizarro and it was the best 10 minutes I've had all day.

[@Lukeff7]

To any friends in the UK (or visiting) get yourself over to Bletchley Park - the national museum of computing is on the same site, too. It's not expensive. You can learn lots about Turing and the war effort, and see lots of artefacts in the museum as well as explore the park itself. You can stand in the very room the colossus was built / operated in, and see a real working colossus, followed by many other computers throughout history. You can also see a working re-creation of Turings Bombe!

[@kinge7328]

He could have made significant advances in what we know in computer science today if not for homophobia. SMH. It just annoys me that ones personal preferences can be judged and ridiculed even up to this day.

[@jeremybailey262]

Human nature. Hate that which you do not understand, fear the unknown. Safety in comformity and expect the worst.

[@kyoungjunhan1098]

RIP Sir Alan Turing, your contribution has changed the world.

[@cuddledog142]

It's actually unbelievable how he was treated considering his contribution to society.

[@MultiPaulinator]

I actually wouldn't mind a CrashCourse Mathematics series. You guys should get Danica McKellar on that.

[@TheTravelTechBear]

Thank you for talking about Turing's life!!

[@kivakaija8157]

The Imitation Game is a fantastic movie, but has a lot of inaccuracies about what Alan Turing was like as a person. Makes me sad that people think of him the way the movie portrayed him

[@CocoOwnzU]

I have not done much research into Turing myself, but have recently watched The Imitation Game. Could you tell me how his true character differed from its portrayal in the film?

[@Lala47362]

CocoOwnzU the film portrayed him as being autistic and socially inept, not really sure why because from what I've read, he was pretty normal and sociable, despite being 'eccentric'

[@M104-q9y]

Including the discussion about what happened to Alan Turing was very important and I'm glad you did it. However, "hormone treatment" is a pretty conservative name for chemical castration. What he went through was horrible and should be discussed using the appropriate language. Watering it down to make it sound like he took some pills which made him feel a bit weird is not really appropriate.

[@WhompingWalrus]

"hormonal treatment to suppress his sexuality" describes it just fine. That's literally what it was, and it's a more accurate way to refer to it than "chemical castration", which is ambiguous and misleading if you aren't already familiar with the "treatment", if you can call it that. It sounds way more extreme, I get that, because it _is_ an extreme thing to do to a person, but I don't think that it's any more accurate of a term. Plus, it invokes imagery that's probably a bit inappropriate for PBS, given that there's an alternative, arguably more sensible way to refer to it. They didn't say he took some pills that "made him feel a bit weird". They say he took hormones which "altered his mood and personality", and then he killed himself. The way they address it here is pretty direct and succinct, and they make no effort to defend what his government did to him. I think they handled it well.

[@Night0fTheLivingDead]

The world did not deserve Alan.

[@zixitix3374]

This little facts, like CAPTCHA always blow my mind! Thank you, Crash Cours it is very interesting!

[@hangchen]

A concise and succinct video to know almost everything you need about Alan Turing for the general audience.

[@sagepaul8998]

It took me about 3 days to wrap my head around the solution to the Halting problem. It's so elegant! Amazing work from those two giants. 👏👏👏

[@rbradhill]

'not-quite-Benedict-Cumberbatch-lookalike' xD good stuff as ever, keep it up!

[@Leotique]

I have to admit that this is one of the most enjoyable but also most difficult topic of Crash Course ever !!!!!

[@rjwhite4424]

all geniuses aren't appreciated in their time because they are so far ahead of it.

[@robinw77]

Great! One of the entertainment highlights of my week, and I've been a professional programmer for years!

[@documentspencer]

Same here! I look forward to it as well.

[@Jackscin]

Do you Freelance? or you have a job?

[@robinw77]

Oldschool I have a job but freelancing is definitely an option these days, if you're considering a career?

[@Jackscin]

Robin Williams I am still learning, but I want to freelance and then eventually get a job

[@robinw77]

Oldschool Good stuff, well I'd suggest taking a recognized qualification, but these days experience is also valued highly (I speak as someone who interviews developers). The basics covered here are an excellent place to start. It's surprising how many programmers these days lose sight of these basics and end up writing inefficient code. If I were you, I'd start doing websites for friends and family, programs for yourself, apps, anything really as long as it helps you to feel comfortable with programming. Also in the future, machine learning will be a strong subject to have. She said she's going to cover this later in the series. Good luck!

[@leahmk93]

i love your videos on computer science as i studied IT at college

[@AdamEdwardsDBZ]

Would it be possible to do more expose pieces like this and the Grace Hopper video? I love learning about the people who laid the foundation for modern computing!

[@steevf]

Like a whole course on notable figures in computer history.

[@WhompingWalrus]

I'd totally recommend Computerphile for this sort of thing. They also have a whole bunch else in a similar vein, but they definitely have stuff from the gods of early computing & their colleagues.

[@bokbokeh]

this is so aesthetically pleasing

[@parthdatar]

Lovely movie, The Imitation Game

[@rosco725]

Parth Datar the book is better

[@MFMegaZeroX7]

Lovely movie, The Imitation Game.

[@RottingDragon]

I enjoyed the movie, but it's so historically inaccurate that it's basically just fiction. There's very little that they got right.

[@iAmTheSquidThing]

Apparently it's extremely inaccurate though. And effectively slanders real people who collaborated with Turing by portraying them as his enemies. Learning that really put me off it.

[@rosco725]

Regicidal Maniac it is a movie about what would to most people be a boring movie so they had to make it more interesting, but I still agree with you that it is not very accurate

[@Malidictus]

"Of course, the German military wasn't sharing their Enigma settings on social media..." Ouch! That was an unexpectedly epic burn :)

[@sisyphyus]

THANK YOU!!!! That was wonderfully done. Alan Turing, is a hero.

[@poojabannikuppemahesha9422]

So Comprehensive :) Thanks for her flawless explanation aided with graphics for us to easily visualize .. This is what I badly wanted all my life .,, The stage I started reading text books without pictures .. I less enjoyed studies!! Thank you lot for Crash Course Team .. You people have done a wonderful job :)

[@ragnell18]

11:16 Don't believe we didn't notice that. The robot hegemony is upon us!!!

[@Danielevans2]

This series is one or my favourite parts of my week

[@RobertShane]

I've watched this series from the start and I'm not a student or a programmer. Just a regular guy. I find it fascinating.

[@Kakurady]

9:06 Wish the Bombe graphic showed Turing's Polish and British colleagues - it was a team effort. In general, cryptography (encryption and decryption) is fascinating. For example, it didn't really matter (much) that the Enigma machine's design is (mostly) public; keeping rotor and plugboard settings (your "key") secret is what keeps your message secret. (At least, for long enough that when others break it, the information is already useless.) Cryptography is used everywhere, even when you watch a KZbin video; and could fill a whole lesson, or even a whole series, by itself.

[@haleyk349]

I wish i had this video to watch when we were studying the turing machine in my systems theory class!

[@0NBalfa0]

markov chains is also a model of algorithmic procedures (equivalent to that of turing machines ). also the reasoning behind the church turing thesis is that the strangest models of algorithmic procedures at the time were equivalent and thus we are assuming that the vague notion of the algorithm can be expressed mathematically by any of these models.

[@awesomegamer31]

I TOOK MY COMPUTING GCSE TODAY YOU SAVED ME THANKS!!!!

[@gruftgrabbler1505]

I am actually studying information and system technology, so I'm very familiar with those themes. But your Videos are super great, super fun... I love watching them. Thank you for making Videos.

[@parsuli.]

11:57 Red eyes. Watch out people. Also, I know there was so much more to be fascinated by in this episode but what Captcha stands for was far more mind-blowing. I always thought it came from "catching" a robot red handed.

[@chetranqui]

love all the side-quips. It's great to see that you enjoy the topic that you're teaching. :-)

[@edibleapeman2]

This episode is fantastic.

[@Be_ashutosh]

11:17 her eyes are blinking red

[@far9874]

My prayers have been answered this is all ive ever wanted in life tbh!

[@joannemarc9121]

My face melted trying to understand!

[@deepakkiran5334]

"Of course the German military wasn't sharing their enigma settings on social media". That was hilarious.

[@umnikos]

To get the turing award you need to make a turing complete that can pass the turing test. Now I need a turing break.

[@Faefire]

Yeay! Alan Turing. He and Ada Lovelace are my favourites.

[@Lala47362]

pls pls pls carry on this course and do stuff about networks too because it's on my gcse spec haha, love it so far

[@rithvikmuthyalapati9754]

He single-handedly decrypted the German communications code. What a WW2 hero.

[@TalexxAltava]

Thanks for everything, Allen Turing! Happy pride month!

[@lockdowntrendings1207]

Cried after watching the movie😢

[@lily14130]

That Bizarro problem is a lot like Gödel's proof that there is no complete, flawless formal systems.

[@lemonbirdo1353]

2:46 Reminds me of state tables for finite state machines from digital design class

[@jcravenclaw]

I can't understand half of it but it's amazing

[@pradyutdas7358]

Crash Course Maths 3:28... 🤔 Sounds mouthwatering!

[@SohaNoseir]

The Imitation Game MUST watch

[@boomstick900]

Stupid bigots caused this man to take his own life. Shameful.

[@KineticSymphony]

No, evil.

[@hso3insl]

i literally finished The Imitation Game and came to look up this guy. I am so fascinated wow

[@zlatko8051]

That scene where Alan said that he took up hormonal therapy ,it was heartbreaking

[@fay7725]

Finally! He should have gotten more attention and appreciation than he did.

[@moiquiregardevideo]

Is the Turing machine still used as a "learning" tool in University? I almost got kicked out of the bachelor program because I could not answer the exam question in a way that please the assistants. Next year, my result were even lower, like if I unlearned. The third attempt was critical as failing again would prevent me to get a diploma, even if I was working as embedded software engineer for years and was getting good grades. I got lucky this time because the creator of that class, the one who tough that Turing machine would be the best way to introduce basic logic concepts was a friendly man. He realized that a good student was going to fail because of the way his creation was used by other teachers. He lent me a box that he was keeping in his office for years. It contained each version of exam he wrote and the solution he presented to his students. I spent my evening and weekends revising all these documents. I could see how the questions evolved over the years in order to confuse students who would cheat by memorizing the answers. Year after year, the questions were tweaked slightly so that new students could not blindly copy the answers from previous years. The net result was an incredible mess of convoluted wording. The original intent of learning from Turing machine general concepts was lost in all these trickeries. I was the first to complete the exam and leave the class as I knew each questions, which kind of proof they expected beside giving the correct answer. Despite answering exactly like the creator of the class was doing, the lazy correctors marked this or that as incomplete... giving me barely enough to pass. I was happy to escape this nightmare. Alan Turing, sure, was a genius. But the Turing machine didn't help me in any way. I preferred much more other similar subject such as the algorithm to convert a recursive function to loop/table driven method. Or the ladder language used in industrial controllers which execute sequential logic without ever blocking in an infinite loop. Hash tables, memory allocation that never get fragmented are other example of advanced concepts which proved more useful than the Turing machine.

[@akshay888able]

do a course on cryptography!

[@Lala47362]

Akshay Apte +

[@Amatureb]

I’ve been interested in Alan Turing for a while. His story is heartbreaking. All his work thrown to the side and the 14 million lives saved all because he was gay 😢

[@Ghaos]

Your videos are awesome, keep up the good work.

[@filmartin8552]

I f**king love this movie, he imitation game. Thanks for making a video about him 😊

[@peepeetrain8755]

Fil Martin Same

[@RottingDragon]

Fil Martin I agree that it's an enjoyable film, I just wish that more people know that it's so historically inaccurate that it's basically fiction.

[@ishbanyadav]

Regicidal Maniac You're right but that's how the film industry 'fine tunes' the story for the masses.

[@filmartin8552]

Regicidal Maniac oh, my life is a lie

[@zygfrydmierzwinski6041]

We should rember that a lot of facts from imitation game are lies, because Enigma was broken by Poles two times (the second one when Germans improved coding). Just write in google "Bomba Enigma Machine". This part of history was a lie (until 2014 when Britain officialy agreed that polish scientists broke enigma)

[@atticus9731]

i Just ran 2 miles And I came back to relax and learn programing

[@p.o.s.h.o.u1037]

This man inspired me so much

[@sonicycles]

Videos 13 & 14 already solved the Church-Turing thesis already.

[@ks98isaac]

The Halting Problem sounds a lot like Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem

[@hanro50]

Math build apon itself continuously...

[@ccgarciab]

They are both related.

[@vaibhavtripathi4951]

Crash course is awesome.

[@aeebeecee3737]

so for the Turing machine, this device has at least 2 memory modules the state and the infinity long tape, read write head, and processing rules module associating with 2 memory modules.

[@quantumking1724]

CrashCourse math, please. I'm about to start tutoring at my college, I'll be one of two.

[@lemonade2473]

I'm very disturbed by that story. They should teach this in school. We read the Kite Runner, kids can handle this kind of stuff.

[@GmoneyMozart]

Cumberbatch should have gotten the best actor oscar.

[@Hannah-ologist]

I still have no idea how Turing Machines work...BUT he's great soo that's good enought for me!

[@Zzerman]

11:16 Nice nod to Bladerunner!

[@SussyBacca]

The halting problem wasn't called the halting problem till well after Turing died and he never made a big deal of it. It is part of undecidability, NOT a proof that a Turing machine can't do everything. It proves an arms race, or hackability will always be true. That's it. If you simply wrap "bizarro" in "H 1.1" and it works as H, but if fed bizarro, negates it, you once again solve everything, until you make "bizarro 1.1", which wraps "H 1.1" and negates it, and on and on to infinity. THAT is what Turing actually was trying to convey; that you can always choose "break it" as part of "everything" because "break it" is actually part of "everything". If anything, this completely proves a Turing machine can in fact do anything.

[@SoulSoldSeparately]

thank you for mentioning the tragedy that lies beneath and build / lead up to his demise and even though this isn't news to me, it was very important for me to hear about it in a format like the one you are providing so yeah, thanks again :)

[@Lotuspod333]

Best outro yet!!! :0

[@HumbertoRamosCosta]

Turing took his life with a poisoned apple, there is an (unconfirmed) history that tells that Apple took the name (and the symbol) in homage to him.

[@tuele4302]

Perhaps an episode on John von Neumann's contributions to computer science is also in order?

[@thecentalist3160]

You spoiled the ending of The Imitation Game. LOL

[@pondererofpointlessdreams5029]

The Centalist No, just his life

[@Roman-eq7ed]

Ending of that and ANY historical movie is spoiled, if you're not illiterate in history. How about picking up a book instead of playing Fortnite, once in a while?

[@meganleia]

Roman Valkyon it’s a joke, don’t act so pretentious

[@alexv5581]

How did she spoil it? Its his life? What ignorant comment.

[@alexv5581]

What a stupid comment

[@GrimmerPl]

Fun fact: Magic the Gathering is also Turing Complete.

[@TalysAlankil]

"And not quite Benedict Cumberbatch lookalike" And thank God for that.

[@YurikArt84]

YES !!!! CRASHCOURSE MATH!!!

[@parkashkumar4183]

Good Work, I love the way of explain

[@zakunknown9737]

Love you Carrie Anne!!

[@glialcell6455]

Hope you have a video on von Neumann, too - that'd be nice.