In a long but interesting read PSmag and MosaicScience.com are both carrying an article by Dr. Kat Arney about the work of Alan Turing as his interests drifted from cryptography, to computers and then to Biology later in life.
Turing, in 1952, published a set of equations that tried to explain the patterns we see in nature, from the dappled stripes adorning the back of a Zebra to the whorled leaves on a plant stem, or even the complex tucking and folding that turns a ball of cells into an organism.
He set to work collecting flowers in the Cheshire countryside, scrutinizing the patterns in nature. Then came the equations—complex, unruly beasts that couldn’t be solved by human hands and brains. Luckily the very latest computer, a Ferranti Mark I, had just arrived in Manchester, and Turing soon put it to work crunching the numbers. Gradually, his “mathematical theory of embryology,” as he referred to it, began to take shape.
Like all the best scientific ideas, Turing’s theory was elegant and simple: any repeating natural pattern could be created by the interaction of two things—molecules, cells, whatever—with particular characteristics. Through a mathematical principle he called “reaction–diffusion,” these two components would spontaneously self-organize into spots, stripes, rings, swirls, or dappled blobs.
In particular his attention focused on "morphogens"—the then-unknown molecules in developing organisms that control their growing shape and structure.
Turing worked out that one morphogen can turn on the machinery that makes more of itself. But this activator also produces the second morphogen—an inhibitor that switches off the activator. Hence the Zebra's stripe, the leopard's spots. And he did it all with mathematics.
The morphogens would never be explained by Turing, (Watson and Crick hadn't published yet), but he believed he might have cracked the code about how they worked. His paper “The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis” [pdf] appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in August 1952.
At first accepted, the theory was sidelined for decades by the biology mainstream.
Then beginning in the late 90s evidence started to accumulate that perhaps Turing was right, that the spots and the swirls and the stripes of Zebras was due to the interactions of two chemical signals, one turns on an effect, the other turns it off.
Finally, James Sharpe and his team in a paper published in August 2014, explained the entire process on a molecular level. Turing was essentially right, he had deduced the method of operation merely by observation and mathematics before we had an inkling about DNA.
You can listen to an interview of Sharp by Dr. Kat Arney here.
(Score: 1) by aristarchus on Monday September 15 2014, @04:58AM
More? I am sick and tired of all this "Alan Turing was right" stuff, mostly because he was. No, it is not that, it is that the British Government in its infinite wisdom killed him. Hmm, Alan, Aaron, bright boys with moxie about computers, are we seeing a pattern here? No wonder the Scots are going to leave.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday September 15 2014, @05:27AM
Are they? No, serious, how are the after-vote polls?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday September 15 2014, @05:30AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday September 15 2014, @06:59AM
Made ya look! No, final vote is Thursday, or so I understand. Only possibly part Scottish on the mother's side, but who doesn't hate the English? The Britons? The Picts? The Gaels? The Welsh? Cornish? Americans? South Africans? Indians? Tongans? Fijians? Sri Lankans? Falklanders? Australians? (OK, the Kiwis have serious daddy issues), Rhodesians? Hong Kong? Canada, for God's sake! Boudicea would vote for Scottish independence!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Monday September 15 2014, @07:10AM
Two people separated by 60 years and the Atlantic Ocean? No, we're not.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 1) by aristarchus on Monday September 15 2014, @07:37AM
No? How many Alan Turing's and Aaron Swartz's have there been in order to make this a small sample? And we could add a few more names.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday September 15 2014, @09:55AM
I'm pretty sure there was only one of each.
Go on then.
What did Alan Turing's suicide have to do with the fact that he was good with computers?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday September 16 2014, @04:33AM
only one of each.
Yes, my point exactly, a rather large sample!
Real pivotal figures in human history are rather rare. And oftener than no they are punished or destroyed for being such. Giodorno Bruno comes to mind, or Socrates.
In Turing's case, what was he doing looking at all those flowers in the post-war years? Yes, inferring a genetics as information system theory, but you do not know how this was related to his suicide? If you have anything to do with computers, you should read a bit of history, and at least be aware of the Turning Machine, and the Turning Test. Yes, I am an actual human being and not a prototype Solentconverso-bot.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday September 16 2014, @08:56AM
No it's not.
No, I really don't. Can you enlighten me?
I know what Turing had to do with computers. I asked what his suicide had to do with him being good at computers.
You said:
What's the pattern, exactly? What did Alan Turing's "moxie about computers" have to do with his suicide?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday September 16 2014, @09:26AM
Yes, my point exactly, a rather large sample!
No it's not.
Truly, you baffle me here. We have a population of 2, or possibly 4, maybe even a dozen, and you do not think that 2 of these (or four, adding the other two) is a significant sample? I am at a loss about how to continue a discussion with one so ignorant, not just of statistics, but of basic mathematical ratios! And just saying "no, it's not" is not an argument.
I know what Turing had to do with computers. I asked what his suicide had to do with him being good at computers.
You said:
Hmm, Alan, Aaron, bright boys with moxie about computers, are we seeing a pattern here?
What's the pattern, exactly? What did Alan Turing's "moxie about computers" have to do with his suicide?
Ah, the old intentionally obtuse gambit! You think that I think that there is something else about Turing, something that is not "being good at computers" that is related to his suicide! I take it you mean, besides the prosecution and ill-advised forced medical treatment he was made to undergo? Oh, you weren't aware of that, either? And of course, you are wondering what I was implying about Aaron Swartz, besides _his_ being good with computers. And Bruno, who had the misfortune to live well before there were any computers, and Socrates, who lived before there was even a lot of math! What could they all have had in common that resulted in their deaths? I think you know. I KNOW you know! Deep inside you, you feel its stirrings! Confess! Confess! (not you, Cardinal Fang!)
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday September 16 2014, @10:57AM
You accuse me of not understanding statistics, and yet you haven't even decided how big your population is. What are your criteria? And what are the criteria for picking these examples out of the population which lead to your "significant" result?
So far it seems that your "population" is "people who have come to mind while thinking about a couple of other people who suffered ignoble deaths, and who were also fairly (in)famous in their chosen field." That's about as biased a way of picking a population as there can be.
No, I don't, because I have very little information on how you've picked your population of [undefined number] people.
No, I think (it's very hard to tell for sure) that you implied that his involvement with computers was related to his suicide, something I dispute.
If their deaths are the reason you're considering them in your statistical population, then you're just going round in circles.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Insightful) by arslan on Monday September 15 2014, @05:13AM
Am I the only one that spot the big typo in the title?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday September 15 2014, @05:16AM
LoL, Dammit.
Hey, it spell checked just fine.
Facepalm.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday September 15 2014, @05:34AM
U have elevated levels of morphogens causing you to spot (or stripe)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday September 15 2014, @07:10AM
Oh, different Alan? OK, forget everything I said. Sure sounded like the same guy. Isn't he the one that came up with the world's most deadly joke, that we deployed against the Nazis? Cue Monty Python. Or spellcheck beyond Microsoft spellcheck. It's all the same in the end.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @04:36PM
Now you tell me. Thanks but no thanks, I just spent the last two months ordering different swivel stands and brackets for my laptop so my PC could pass the "Turning Test".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dpp on Monday September 15 2014, @11:54PM
Saddens me, wondering...What else he might've accomplished had he not been used->abused->killed by his ignorant government.
He had an impressive run before his life was ruined, just at the end of his 30s.
Imagine several more decades with him around exercising his genius.