The Death of Alan Turing

The Death of Alan Turing Alan was left with no choice but to subject himself to doses of the female hormone Estrogen in order to check his libido by rendering him impotent. This form of treatment involving chemical castration led to a gynaecomastia or a growth of breasts! He was on probation for a period of one year, with a result that his movements were tracked. Alan was automatically barred from entering the U.S. as he joined the ranks of those who had criminal records. In 1952 the British Government introduced the concept of Positive Vetting or the practice of investigating the character or ability of a person engaged in sensitive work involving state secrets. This had a direct implication in terms of withdrawal of Alans clearance for cryptographic assignments. The government believed in the theory that defined homosexuality as a perversity often characterized by an unstable emotional balance and a mind which can swerve towards indiscriminate perilous acts in moments of tribulation. This meant that homosexuals were easy targets for blackmailers interested in extracting ultra-secretive documents of the state. Alan went to Norway in mid-1952 lured by the prospect of men only dances and was enamoured by Kjell, an attractive Norwegian lad. This highlighted the fact that his spirit remained unbroken and he withstood the trial displaying the same resilience with which he nonchalantly faced the scornful attitude of his peers and tutors at Sherbone. Alan went to Greece for a short holiday in 1953 which raised suspicion and frayed the nerves of security officers. Kjell , his acquaintance from Norway came to visit him but it led to a crisis as they were not permitted to meet each other. It cannot rain forever. Alan continued with an in- depth research in the complex theory of morphogenesis. He now preferred working from home, where he set up a small laboratory with pans of chemical solutions growing weeds, formulating amino acids, studying different forms of marine life beginning with the mono-cellularRadiolariaà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ The visitor was greeted with an overflowing stack of letters on the latest developments in the fields of logic which physically and metaphorically filled his world! Alan extended his study of mind and matter taking interest in the psychology of the mind. He visited a psycho-analyst Franz Greenbaum who was open to the idea of accepting his sexual instincts as a part of his personality. Alan sought to delve deeper into his own sub-conscious mind and went in for a dream analysis. Dreams they say are a window to the soul. Alan was surprised to note that though his current relationship with his mother was cordial, his childhood mysteriously reflected undercurrents of hostility probably due to a judgmental attitude on Alans failure to meet up with social courtesies. Alan made peace with his past that was marked by being raised with an absentee father who provided for the family but perhaps alienated the kids from himself due to a rigid mental framework.Though Alan falsely accused his brother for a lack of sympathy during his trial, he harbored no ill-feelings in his heart. He genuinely perceived his mother as an ally and a spirit of friendliness perva ded their relationship. Alans probation period ended in April 1953 and he rid himself of the hormonal implant in his thigh which he felt would be effective even after the treatment was completed. Alan enjoyed reading the novel Finistere which described the complexity of a homosexual relationship of a teenage student with his teacher. Homosexuality was a social taboo, a stigma which threatened the morality of society at large. The protagonist in the novel tragically committed suicide as he was pushed to brink by those who questioned the sanctity of his value-system. An escape into the Heaven of Freedom. On the evening of Tuesday 8th June Alan Turing was discovered dead with froth in his mouth, lying beside a half-eaten apple by his visibly devastated housekeeper. He had supposed to have expired an evening before. The coroner concluded that it was a deliberate act of self-annihilation in an impulsive moment as one can expect from people of his type who were believed to possess an unpredictably volatile mindset.The apple had probably been dipped in the deadly potassium cyanide that he often used for his experiments. This venomous potion was enough to guarantee a swift transition from the real to the abstract world.Alan Turing finally reconciled the equation between life and death by using free-will to put a deterministic end to his melancholy often solitary existence.Mrs.Turing true to her religious stance, vehemently denied the possibility that her son could end his life which was a gift from God in this cowardly manner. Alan perhaps displayed his sensitivity to his mothers emotions and did her a service by dramatizing his death to add an element of intrigue and ambiguity. The apple was not analyzed and so there was scope to give Alan the benefit of doubtà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ His mothers contention was that his unkempt nails and a blatant disregard for cautious hygiene would have led to traces of the cyanide being embedded in them, and this was ingested when he ate an apple which was his daily routine before he retired for the day. The fact that he had theatre tickets purchased for the near future and had even booked the computer lab for the night of 8th June added to the mysterious circumstances of his death that baffled his friends and psychoanalyst alike. Alan Turings cheery disposition masked any thoughts of death that lurked behind his mind. The only factor that takes our chain of thoughts to that end is the fact that he made a new will on the 11th of February 1954 barely three months before his death. The trial was behind him and he faced it with stoic resilience having the courage to speak up and accept the bitter truth rather than resorting to the crutches of hypocrisy. Perhaps the burden of carrying secrets of the state and the sensitive nature of his work infringed upon his personal freedom and this dichotomy seemed too heavy to bear. The social stigma along with the fact that he could be arrested any time for events that made up his past and be turned into a scapegoat on account of social prejudice and condescension were enough to push him to the brink where death was a final escape from the tormenting reality of his life.Alan Turing was cremated on 12th June 1954, in the presence of his mother and brother. Turingsma or the charisma of Turing In June 2009, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown , made a statement of apology for the tormenting trial to which Turing was subjected, when all his life this extra-ordinary human continued to seek the ordinary pleasures of life. An extraordinarily gifted genius who was denied the adulation and honor he so truly deserved got registered in public memory as a law-breaking criminal! The legacy of Alan Turing pervades our lives when we try to unravel the enigma surrounding the proliferation of life in the biological and the intellectual dimensions of revolutionary inventions. Alan Turing deserves credit for the existence of the innumerable interactive gadgets that lend an illusory effect to our lives, whether its through the online revolution where long distance communication is possible via Skype , or online shopping in a virtual market, online tutoring and even medical consultations that have collectively blurred the line between the abstract and the real. The enigmatic saga of Alan Turing leaves us with a sense of disillusionment and deep regret of this act of betrayal on the part of the Government machinery which rallied around his intelligence at the peak of war and shoved him into the depressive dreariness of criminality for no fault of his. The anomaly really lay not in the realms of the homosexual mind but in the conditional prejudices of society at large. The paradoxical act of self-annihilation from the genius who mastered the art of creation reflects the heavy price a law-abiding citizen paid in a hypocritical, distorted world. The loss is magn ified manifold if we ponder upon the collective loss to humanity on account of the premature end to a genius researcher of his stature. Alan Turing the legendary genius, inspires us to steadfastly persevere till the prize is won and lives on as the epitome of truthfulness and ingenuity in the minds of the future generation. The seeds which sprouted as tiny saplings in the fertile mind of Alan, have today blossomed into a grove and Alans vision of Thinking Machines which simulate the working of the human brain is a now a mundane reality.Computerization and bio-technological research in the area of genetics with special reference to artificial intelligence is indeed the most revolutionary legacy of the twenty-first century. The all encompassing nature of the application of computer-generated programmes and techniques, bring to the fore the eternal validity of Alans pursuits. The domain of Alans research is dynamic and even hundred years after his birth undoubtedly challenges and beckons intellectuals to unravel the boundlessly intriguing capabilities of the modern computer.

My Dinner with Andre Essay

This is defiantly a hard to pick which side to go with. With Wally if you in a comfort spot or you feel comfortable then you have to be happy because you’re in your comfort zone. He and his wife got an electric blanket as a gift and he doesn’t know how he could live without it. With the electric blanket they can depend on it staying with the cold weather in New York. In a way it protects him because if wasn’t warm then he could die of hypothermia. He also feels a whole lot better when he wakes up. His dreams are also better. It just seems like everything is better. With Andre he says that you don’t get to the world. It’s not only dangerous because you could get electrocuted but also it could kill you. You don’t give what your body needs. He says the body needs different things like how Lady Hatfield only ate chicken. Since she only ate chicken her body starved and then she died. You also don’t get to experience the world. You get to think of things like I get to snuggle with cause its cold or you find out that you like the cold. I could how Wally is right because if you’re comfortable then you must be happy. I could also see how Andre is right because then you get to experience things you wouldn’t of before. I would have to choose Andre on this subject. If you’re in your little bubble you don’t get to do thing that are fun to do. You just kind of sit there with yourself and what like Andre said it’s like your dying. It is a little murder. Of course you wouldn’t be arrested for because well you’re dead and it would kind of pointless to arrest a person that is dead. You don’t get to live life to the fullest. You can’t visit China or bungee jump if you’re under the electric blanket. You don’t fill yourself up if you just eat chicken every night for so many years. You’re just not giving the body what it needs. How could you be really living if you’re sitting there under an electric blanket? Yeah you are happy because you’re in your comfort zone under the warm blanket but just sitting there can’t really be living. The human body wasn’t meant to just lie around and just sit there like a couch potato. That’s way on peoples bucket list its not I want to sit around watching SportsCenter (which in my opinion isn’t a bad choose), its things like climb Mt. Everest, run with the lions, play a round of golf with Arnold Palmer, or go visit the country side of Italy. You have to get out from under the blanket and go do stuff. See what the world has to offer. Do the bad, do the good, and do whatever you can do now. This is way I choose to go with Andre. To live life or to say what is really good is to do stuff from under the electric blanket.

Answering Question Number One

Go Ahead Enterprises started as a company and made itself famous through its unique metal toys. The company was able to establish a national reputation for their product.   Its strength lies in having a manufacturing plant which produces the toys. However, as competition intensified, the company thinkers decided to overhaul the system and to go for more profit. This re-invention of the company was successful but only for a time. The atmosphere changed and soon the company found itself wondering where to start again.   Go Ahead Enterprises evolved from a manufacturing organization into a marketing one. This made the significant over-turn of the company, which sadly, was an unforeseen suicidal path. The company reduced its number of employees and moved to the city where it could market toys. It has stopped manufacturing its own metal toys. It sold its manufacturing plant. This decision was a critical one since the company never realized its important resource- the plant itself. Having a manufacturing plant is one key for sustainability.   Plus, the company is sure that each metal toy manufactured is at its best. Quality is assured. The demands or orders for the products can be handled easily since Go Ahead Enterprises supervises its own operation. Selling the manufacturing plant was an unwise move. Losing a great deal number of people is also critical since they are the company’s best asset. Letting go of competent and trained staff or employees is a loss to the company, too. People are one great resource that brings additional investments and profit. However, cutting knowledgeable and skilled employees off from the company may also result to downfall. The company’s big bosses’ decision to source instead of manufacturing its own metal toys became a major disappointment in the long run. Go Ahead Enterprises created a niche for itself in the market. Changing the position of that niche affects the company. What Go Ahead Enterprises did was to create another niche for itself by turning into a marketing company. It used to produce metal toys under its brand name.   But since the big bosses decided to make a complete overhaul, the company lost its niche as the manufacturer of metal toys. The company leaders’ decision was enough to ruin the company unintentionally.   On organisational level, they have induced the change. What they failed to see is the long-term effect of that decision. They saw profits coming in like never before. But an initial success is not a guarantee of future sustainability and growth. The company leaders never saw that right and noble decisions may sometime lead to a bitter path.   They should have seen the consequences first before jumping to conclusion and endanger the company’s growth, position in the market and quality of products. On the other hand, environmental factors do play a big part. Globalization floods the market with cheap products. This resulted to steeping competition and fight for consumers’ favor. Globalization made the market more diversified with more choices and alternatives. The consumers are left confused, bewildered and happy. The consumers are happy because influx of goods means affordability. They get to choose the products which suit their purse. Yet, cheap goods are sometimes made of inferior quality. Satisfaction is still an issue. There are consumers who still opt to buy branded products even if it is priced higher than the usual ones. Better to spend much than to be sorry, so they say. Go Ahead Enterprises banked on globalisation and joined the bandwagon to keep itself on top of the game. It imitated other companies which are also changing their company’s course to accommodate changes. The environmental change brought by globalization has transformed, but not necessarily improved Go Ahead Enterprises. Losing the company’s niche, its manufacturing plant and its key people brought the company lower than what it used to be. Go Ahead should have maintained its manufacturing and strengthened its niche in the market. The leaders should have come up with more strategies rather than adopting a strategic plan, which in the end, brought more harm than profit. The company must focus on its vision and keep the main thing â€Å"the main thing† (Hybels 2002). In this case, Go Ahead Enterprises' fate will be on its feet again if it will re-align its strength, assets, priorities, and focus on the main thing. It may not be money or profit but company reputation and sustainability. List of References Hybels, B. 2002, Courageous Leadership, Zondervan Publishing, Michigan.                     

Is Destiny a Matter of Chance or Choice - 1268 Words

The scientists, like Isaac Newton, believed that there was a universal law and everything was ordered in line with this universal law. Since everything in an order, the future can be predicted because it was already arranged by the universal law. This is also called destiny or fate and it means that people believe their role in this world is given and they cannot change it. However, people’s life is not destined by a universal law or by God. With the new discoveries in science, it has been claimed that 18th century scientists were wrong in their view on universal law. The chaotic scientists of the 20th century claimed that the chaotic system is random and not related with destiny because any change in the initial condition will affect†¦show more content†¦Atkatz say: â€Å"†¦for collections of objects: given the initial conditions- the position and velocity of each body- and the acting forces, the entire future history of that system is determined uniquely† (Atkatz, p 1). In brief, if mechanistic functions and initial conditions were known, the future of an event could be predicted. This can be the case for the objects; however, it is not possible to apply it to human beings. Although there are some limitations, human beings have their free will and they can make choices which make the future unpredictable. In the 20th century it was realized that at the nuclear level, the behavior of the atom and individual electron could not be predicted. With the development of the Science of Chaos, theory of fixed universal law lost its importance. The chaos theory describes the behavior of nonlinear dynamic system which is highly sensitive to initial conditions. Since initial conditions are sensitive, any effect on conditions makes the system behave randomly. In other words, the world is not a gigantic clock, there is not an order or fixed law; it works in jumps, in a non-linear manner that predictability is not possible. 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