[FOM] [ATY/TCAC] Early October update additions

Wed Oct 12 14:34:53 EDT 2011

Lots of responses to the October update - here are some of them, plus
some extra items should be mentioned:

1) Just today came headlines along the lines "Leonardo DiCaprio tipped to
play codebreaker Alan Turing":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/oct/12/leonardo-dicaprio-codebreaker-alan-turing?newsfeed=true

"Collider.com reported that "Warner Bros. bought Graham Moore's spec
script The Imitation Game in a 7-figure deal today.  The buzz is
reportedly great on Moore's debut script about the life of British
mathematician/computer scientist Alan Turing, though that is not
necessarily why the studio outbid several independent companies for the
rights.  Rather it is because Leonardo DiCaprio is very interested in the
project and has "the inside track" to star.  Moreover, Ron Howard—who won
the Oscar when he directed the math biopic A Beautiful Mind—is reportedly
interested in the directing." See:

http://collider.com/leonardo-dicaprio-the-imitation-game/120032/

2) A number of people have picked up on the Brazil plans. With the
involvement of the British consulate, this might develop into something
quite exciting.

Main protagonist Dante Barone has some major ATY initiatives in progress -
more news later, hopefully.

3) Writer Ian Watson tells us: You might be interested for the Alan Turing
Year in a book I'm writing called "The Universal Machine: from the dawn of
computing to digital consciousness" that will be published in 2012 by
Springer Praxis Books in their popular science series.

As it's title suggests Turing's concept of a universal machine is the
unifying metaphor throughout the book and Turing his achievements and
legacy feature strongly throughout. The book is intended for a general
(non-academic) readership and hopefully will help further inform people
about Turing. The book is supported by my
blogÂ http://universal-machine.blogspot.com/

4) Marc Monticelli is working on a Turing exhibition at Espace-Turing
(October 2011-July 2012). He writes:

We open for the Science Festival which is a national event in our country
(12-16 October). Visits will be organized for secondary and high school
students on thursday and friday And the general public will be welcome on
wednesday, saturday and sunday

On November 4th, we organize a formation especilly dedicated to high
school teachers.Â  Afterwards, we have planned to welcome secondary school
classes twice a week, as the exhibition is open on Wednesday and Friday
until July 2012.

Informations on our web site (in French sorry) :

http://www.espace-turing.fr/-Expositions-2011-2012-.html

5) We have news of a Turing Article Competition, organised by Maths
Careers, with deadline for entries 13th January, 2012:
http://www.mathscareers.org.uk/viewitem.cfm?cit_id=383220

Entrants need to be between 17 and 19 years-old.

6) Jochen Viehoff from the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum in Germany tells us
"we will wave a wonderful art peace on display in October 2012: an
acoustic delay line memory with copper tubes, built by the media artist
Yunchul Kim. More information is available here:
http://www.khm.de/~tre/hello.htm

... the art work fits perfectly in the framework of Alan Turing and his
work on Pilot ACE..."

7) Astrid Byro asked "Can you please distribute on your ATY list that
ticketing has opened for the ACCU/Bletchley Lectures 2011? We have
confirmed that Frances Allen will be speaking. Other speakers to be
announced.
http://www.regonline.co.uk/builder/site/Default.aspx?EventID=990848

All profits will, of course, go to BP Trust and TNMOC."

We are looking forward to the Turing Centenary lectures in 2012!

8) From David Vaccoro at Sevenoaks School, we got the following nice
response (thanks, David, great work):

"Many thanks for the email- great to hear about so much going for the ATY.

It was nice to see reference to one of the events I helped organize no 19:
Jonathon Swinton talking at Sevenoaks School (who was absolutely fabulous)

Just to let you know that we have much more planned at Sevenoaks with a
year 10 trip to Bletchley Park this term, a visit from the Millennium
Maths Project Enigma tour next term, as well as talks from Kevin Warwick
(Artificial Intelligence), Tony Fenwick (LGBT History) and a general
computation theme in Maths Society events with talks planned from Richard
Harvey (UEA on computerized lip-reading).

We have also got a number of of student teams entered in the National
Cipher Challenge, and The Animate12/ Codebreaker competition. I have also
just entered the Hastings Half Marathon where I hope that we will have a
team of teachers running in support of Turing in Hastings and LGBT
awareness. One colleague who is on maternity leave has even given her
child the middle name "Turing".

Anyway just thought I would pass this on- and if you know anyone who may
be interested in coming to speak at our school events then please do let
me know- from an educational point of view Turing's life and work touches
so many different areas."

9) Sergio Rajsbaum reminded us about the Turing Centenary edition of
LATIN2012 - Latin American Symposium on Theoretical Informatics to be held
in Peru:
http://latin2012.cs.iastate.edu/
He adds: "I thought it would be nice to add as part of the events, the
projection of a movie about Turing. Perhaps "The Hero of Station X" or if
not another one. Do you know if it is possible to get a copy, or how?"

Sorry, no information yet about the availablity (or initial screening) of
"The Hero of Station X" - we will pass on info as available.

10) Simply Told (established in 2009 to create inventive, inquisitive
theatre) are planning a "The Turing Project", and are taking part in
Battersea Arts Centre's Freshly Scratched event on 13th October 2011 at
7pm. We will be previewing the ideas behind this show. See:
http://simplytold.co.uk/the-turing-project and
http://www.bac.org.uk/whats-on/freshly-scratched/

11) An important item from David Levy - hopefully there is someone out
there can help:

World Computer Chess Championship 2012
==============================

The Inernational Computer Games Association (ICGA) would like next
year's World Computer Chess Championship to be part of Alan Turing
year, to celebrate Turing's interest in and early work on computer
chess.

The World Computer Chess Championship was inaugurated in 1974 in
Stockholm. Originally it was held every three years, but became an
annual event when progress in the field became more rapid

The 2012 event will be the 20th in the series. Previous locations
were: 1974-Stockholm; Sweden; 1977-Toronto, Canada; 1980-Linz,
Austria; 1983-New York, USA; 1986-Cologne, West Germany;
1989-Edmonton, Canada; 1992-Madrid, Spain; 1995-Hong Kong;
1999-Paderborn, Germany; 2002-Maastricht, The Netherlands; 2003,
Graz, Austria; 2004-Ramat Gan, Israel; 2005-Reykjavik, Iceland;
2006-Turin, Italy; 2007-Amsterdam; 2008-Beijing, China;
2009-Pamplona, Spain; 2010-Kanazawa, Japan; 2011-Tilburg, The
Netherlands. Â
Alongside the World Computer Chess Championship the ICGA normally
organizes an international conference on computer games and an event
for programs playing games other than chess (the Computer Olympiad).

The ICGA is seeking sponsorship for the 2012 event. Ideally we would
like to hold this event in the UK at Bletchley Park, but we will
consider any other country as a location.

Any companies interested in sponsoring this event are invited to
contact me.

David Levy,
President ICGA,
34 Courthope Road,
London NW3 2LD,
England.

email:Â  davidlevylondon at yahoo.com
www.icga.org

12) From Chiara Porcelluzzi news of another nice ATY event, in Italy:

I would inform you that University of Bari (Italy) is organising an
event entitled "Machines, Algorithms and Computer Science in
theÂ Centenary Celebration of Alan Turing"Â to celebrate the Alan
Turing Year and I wish to publicise it on the official Â website, is
this possible to do?
You can find more information about this event on:
http://www.filosofia.uniba.it/home/docenti/petrocelli/Alan%20Turing%20year

We are in the process of adding this to the ATY schedule of events.

13) There is the possibility of an Alan Turing Year dimension to the
Greater Manchester Marathon next year:
http://www.greatermanchestermarathon.com/
I probably said too much already!

14) There is a strong probability of a Royal Society special lecture for
the ATY next autumn - again, more later.

15) The major conference "Computer Science in Russia" to be held in Nishni
Novgorod, in July 3-7, 2012, is planning to join the Alan Turing Year
events, with a special Turing lecture to be given by Yuri Matiyasevich -
more info to follow. The conference submission deadline is December 11.

16) And lots more interesting news from Hong Kong soon.

All for now!

__________________________________________________________________________
  ALAN TURING YEAR                           http://www.turingcentenary.eu
  ASSOCIATION COMPUTABILITY IN EUROPE      http://www.computability.org.uk
  Email:                                               pmt6sbc at leeds.ac.uk
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  and    http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/Alan-Turing-Year/100000473465821
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