Nick Croydon, the CEO of QBD Books, has faced criticism for his thriller The Turing Protocol
A novel written by a prominent book industry figure in which persecuted gay man Alan Turing has sex with a woman and fathers a child has been criticised online for its portrayal of the codebreaker.
The Turing Protocol was released in July and was written by Nick Croydon, the CEO of QBD Books, the largest Australian-owned bookshop chain, where the book is being heavily promoted.
Continue reading...Ubiquity of then-illegal relations at King’s College, Cambridge, explains puzzling 1952 admission, says scholar
For decades, it has puzzled historians. Why, in the course of reporting a burglary to the police in 1952, did the maths genius Alan Turing volunteer that he was in an illegal homosexual relationship? The admission enabled the police to prosecute the Bletchley Park codebreaker for “gross indecency”, ending Turing’s groundbreaking work for GCHQ on early computers and artificial intelligence and compelling him to undergo a chemical castration that rendered him impotent. Two years later, he killed himself.
Now, research by a University of Cambridge academic has shed light on the reasons why Turing, a former undergraduate and lecturer at King’s College, Cambridge, did not hide his homosexuality from the police. “There was a whole community in King’s quite different from stories one knows about from gay history, usually involving casual pickups and a lot of despair, hiding and misery,” said Simon Goldhill, professor of classics at the college.
Continue reading...Employees say there is a trend of limited diversity among the senior scientific leadership at the London centre for AI
Staff at the UK’s national institute for artificial intelligence and data science have expressed “serious concerns” about the organisation’s approach to diversity after it appointed four men to senior roles.
A letter addressed to the leadership of the Alan Turing Institute (ATI) said the appointments showed a “‘continuing trend of limited diversity within the institute’s senior scientific leadership”.
Continue reading...Trafalgar Square monument would stand in ‘stark contrast’ to treatment codebreaker received in his lifetime
An LGBTQ+ armed forces charity has backed proposals to erect a statue of the second world war codebreaker Alan Turing on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth – a high-profile platform for contemporary art commissions.
The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, originally made the suggestion in the House of Commons last week in response to an independent review into the service and experience of LGBTQ+ veterans who served under the pre-2000 ban on homosexuality in the armed forces.
Continue reading...12 riddles linked to new £50 note featuring the codebreaker may take seven hours to crack
GCHQ has released its “most difficult puzzle ever”, a set of 12 riddles linked to design elements of the new £50 note featuring the mathematician and codebreaker Alan Turing.
The questions begin with a relatively straightforward crossword-style puzzle that starts by asking where GCHQ’s predecessor agency, where Turing worked, was based during the second world war. A two-word answer, nine letters then four, is required.
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