Alan Turing, Father of Modern Computer Science, 100th Birthday Marked by Google Puzzle

Alan Turing, Father of Modern Computer Science, 100th Birthday Marked by Google PuzzleIn celebration of what would have been the 100th birthday of the man who defined the rules by which modern computers operate, Alan Turing, Google has added an interactive doodle to their main search page.

Alan Turing was an English mathematician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist who developed one of the earliest computers, known as a Turing Machine. The Turing Machine was a first step towards the binary code and its system of 1’s and 0’s corresponding and on and off state, or a positive and negative voltage which is how your computer’s CPU processes information.

In the doodle on the Google page, according to the USA Today’s Nancy Blair, “there are six puzzles to solve, one for each letter in the Google logo. After completing it the first time you can play again at a more difficult level. The aim is to make the numbers on the tape match the numbers in the upper right. You’re basically setting up a program that the machine will run through.”

“We first had the idea to celebrate Turing more than a year ago but decided to wait for his 100th” to do something complex, says Sophia Foster-Dimino, an artist on the Doodle team. “As one of the fathers of computer science, we thought he was a really fitting person to celebrate.”

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D Robert Curry - with over 2 decades of experience in the IT sector and an avid aviator, Mr. Curry covers all Science & Technology and Aviation realted news stories. drcurry@newstaar.com