
Alan Turing's notes found being used as roof insulation at Bletchley Park - antimora
http://www.mkweb.co.uk/pictures/8203-BLETCHLEY-PARK-Alan-Turing-s-notes-used-roof/pictures-25966005-detail/pictures.html
======
Animats
The restoration effort at Bletchley Park has gone over the top. I visited the
place on a weekday in 2002, when almost nobody went there unless they were
really into crypto history. It was run down, and there were only about 10
people visiting that day. The tour guide was more into the architecture of the
mansion than the crypto, although they had a bombe model (a prop made for a
2001 movie) and had started on the Colossus rebuild. The only thing that
worked back then was one Enigma machine. A non-working Lorenz machine and some
other gear was in glass cases. The guide pointed out where various of the huts
had been. It was just one of those obscure, slightly run down historical spots
one visits in England, with the usual lake and swans.

Then they got National Lottery funding. Now they've rebuild most of the huts
in brick, re-landscaped the grounds, have elaborate displays, added the
"National Museum of Computing", renamed it "Historic Bletchley Park", put in a
visitor's center, a children's playground, a cafe, and, of course, a gift
shop. There's "Turing Gate" "Colossus Way", "Enigma Place", two memorials, and
more stuff under construction.

All this is on the Bletchley Park side. The Colossus rebuild is at the
National Museum of Computing, which is on the same property but has separate
staff and funding. ([http://www.tnmoc.org/](http://www.tnmoc.org/)) They don't
get along with the Bletchley Park tourist operation and don't have public
funding. ("Other exhibitions are available at Bletchley Park, but operated
independently of the Bletchley Park Trust.", says the Trust site.)

~~~
rst
Not sure whether "over the top" was meant as a complaint; I visited last
summer, and thought the (obviously expensive) displays were pretty effective.
The main grounds of the museum (the "tourist operation") also now has a bunch
of interesting working replica gear, including a Bombe and some of its less
publicized support equipment.

The computing museum is also interesting; BTW, in addition to the Colossus
rebuild, they're also constructing a working EDSAC replica (using metallic
delay lines instead of mercury tanks for memory, but otherwise as exact as
possible), and have a bunch of other interesting old machines in the
collection. For visit planning, though, it's open fewer days than the Trust-
managed property.

~~~
anom9999
I know this is possibly the saddest thing anyone has ever said, but the
computing museum is one of my favourite places on earth.

It's a joyful place with so much old technology yet a refreshingly hands on
attitude. I don't think there was a single exhibit that wasn't interactive by
one method or another - which really matters when you're talking about
technology that is largely at an age where kids are too young to have grown up
with so it gives them a chance to play with the predecessors to their much
loved consumer hardware - and it gives us adults a chance to do more than just
reminisce about the fun days experimenting with emerging technologies.

I'd highly recommend that museum on it's own merit; let alone spending the day
exploring the site and Bletchly Park as well.

~~~
AQRB2AD
On the subject of early technology I highly recommend 'The Centre for
Computing History' in Cambridge. They have a good collection and a lovely
atmosphere.

They're currently located in an industrial estate in Cambridge, I'm sure
if/when they move they will get much more attention.

~~~
anom9999
Thank you for the recommendation. I will definitely schedule a visit some
point soon.

------
toddsiegel
Back in the old days anything they could stuff in a wall was insulation. I was
a volunteer firefighter years back. We had a call in the old part of town,
with buildings dating back to the 1700s (George Washington slept here!). We
had to open up the walls in a few spots and really cool old bottles, papers,
and other stuff came out.

~~~
jeffwass
When we redid the bathroom in my 100 year old Baltimore house, we found some
pretty rad stuff.

Old crumpled newspapers from the time of construction were shoved in the
walls. These were interior walls, I think to assist with holding the plaster
in the laths. I was able to salvage part of one page with a comic strip. You
wouldn't have even thought the comic was much out-of-date either.

<even more off-topic> So at some point one of the prior owners decided to
'modernize' the bathroom and turn the original clawfoot tub into a modern
recessed bath. They did this by buding a brick surround around it, covered
with tiles. Weighed a TON. But underneath when we demished the surround, we
saw planks of wood lying next to the tub. Turns out they weren't wood but
dusty marble trim that originally surrounded the walls along the floor.
Original charm from the original house! We had no idea the tub was even a
clawfoot, much less there was marble trim.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
> I was able to salvage part of one page with a comic strip.

Is it posted somewhere?

~~~
jeffwass
No, this was about 7+ yrs ago. I should have it somewhere in storage though.

IIRC it showed a disheveled older man, with a big beard and dressed like a
stereotypical 'hobo', eating some food out of a tin can and making some snarky
comment which I don't remember. The drawing, in black and white, had a bit of
feel like the older Mickey Mouse or Tom and Jerry style to it, but didn't seem
too obviously out of date.

------
reality_czech
I thought Mr. Turing worked on the foundations of computer science, not on the
roof.

~~~
Vecrios
That's quite a Turn in ones career.

------
ekanes
If anyone's interested in Bletchley Park, or the intersection between
encryption and WWII, Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson is a fantastic book.

------
DanBC
They've only just (the past few years) declassified some of his papers from
GCHQ so it's nice that we get to see these without much of a wait.

[http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17771962](http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17771962)

~~~
jameshart
My first thought was: some old guy or girl who worked at Bletchley in the war
is probably about to get a knock on their door and a questioning under the
official secrets act for their failure to properly dispose of classified
documents, because they had the bright idea of using some of the loose papers
they were supposed to take to the incinerator to make their hut a little more
cosy during the winter of '44...

------
throwaway8899
Something to think about ...

Alan Turing wasn't a national security risk because he was gay, but he
actually was a risk because he was that good.

Anybody who could break rotor ciphers circa WW2 was very valuable indeed.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Alan Turing wasn't a national security risk because he was gay //

I always though he was bi, explaining the near marriage - supposedly it wasn't
until late on in their courtship that he informed his fiancée that he had a
predilection for men and she was supposedly shocked.

That aside I'd imagine anyone in their 40s privy to Top Secret info who picked
up unknown teenagers for short-term sexual encounters would be a national
security risk. Want access to his papers and pillow-talk - send in strapping
teen to chat him up? [this is basically what happened (apparently barring the
national security elements, but I always wondered) when he was robbed that led
to reports of this particular homosexual tryst to the police].

>Anybody who could break rotor ciphers circa WW2 was very valuable indeed.

Indeed,
[http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/virtualbp/poles/poles.htm](http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/virtualbp/poles/poles.htm)

Turing did fantastic and utterly amazing work, both in crypto and comp sci of
course.

~~~
ketralnis
Try it this way:

> That aside I'd imagine anyone in their 40s privy to Top Secret info who
> picked up women in bars for short-term sexual encounters would be a national
> security risk. Want access to his papers and pillow-talk - send in an
> attractive lady to chat him up?

Is that different? Or do you think that straight men are somehow immune?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I think the _apparent_ ephebophilia¹ makes a difference. Other than that, no;
ergo I said "anyone" and didn't mention the sex of the person privy to
national secrets nor of the person they picked up for casual sex.

Certainly a honey-trap isn't unheard of. I do however have a feeling that at
the time a considerably younger male would be a more effective lure based on
the societal mores as the subject is far more likely to let them get away than
to raise an alarm. If² this were what happened with Turing it would be a
demonstration of quite notable devotion to his country to have handed himself
in in order to report the incident.

We've seen recently in the news reports of the UK's Prince Andrew at 42 having
allegedly had sex with a 17yo (that's above the age of consent in UK). It's a
massive scandal apparently. But Turing was 39 and he had sex with a 19yo.
Despite _prima facie_ Andrew's tryst being legal - there is a question of
consent - it's clear that it's seen as something that could have leverage over
him and there is inference that Epstein might have used knowledge of the
encounter to apply duress. This for an apparently legal heterosexual encounter
in 2015 - how much more scandal for an illegal homosexual encounter in 1952?

\--

¹ I'd theorise it wasn't ephebophilia _per se_ but a longing for his boyhood
friend who died. My theory.

² There is no substantiation of the idea that there was a security breach.

~~~
godkingjim
Ephebophilia isn't used to describe the presence of sexual attraction to
people ~15 years old, it is used to describe primary or exclusive sexual
interest in people ~15 years old. Pretty much everyone has some level of
sexual attraction to people ~15 years old (the 'term' for that would be
'average').

Paedophilia is also often misused as a term, because it means attraction to
pre-pubescent people, generally younger than 11, but sometimes as old as 13.
Not 17, not 15, not even 14.

The laws we've universally passed to for pornography (actors must be 18 or
older) to protect vulnerable <18 people from exploitation have bled into the
public having an opinion that having sexual attraction for people less than 18
is equivalent to paedophilia, which is pretty strange (I know that I would
personally view someone who is attracted to a 15 year old differently than
someone who is attracted to a 5 year old). Laws of consent obviously differ a
lot per country, but are for the most part 16-18, sometimes as low as 14.

There's even more to it, because our laws regarding age of consent do not
exist exclusively to protect against paedophiles: they are in place to protect
young people from exploitation. Public opinion is sort of confused about this,
again.

If a media outlet says 'Person X accused of sexual relations with a minor',
they have not in any way said that person was a paedophile, just that person A
had sexual relations with someone considered a minor (as old as 17 in some
places). The public often takes this as 'Person X accused of paedophilia',
which is incorrect.

There's also the issue of viewing all pornography of people <18 as 'child
pornography'. This is basically a legal grey zone, which is silly, because a
person who forces a 5 year old to take sexual pictures is pretty different
than someone who asks a horny 15 year old for pictures (in my opinion, again).

To go back on topic, Prince Andrew being accused of having sex with a 17 year
old has nothing to do with paedophilia (at least not with the legal or
psychological definition of paedophilia), it has to do with exploitation of a
minor.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _To go back on topic, Prince Andrew being accused of having sex with a 17
> year old has nothing to do with paedophilia_ //

I'm not sure what point you're making. I never claimed this was paedophilia,
she's clearly not pre-pubescent and was above the UK age of consent.

I also spoke about Turing's tryst being "apparently" ephebophilia (definition:
[http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/epheboph...](http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/ephebophilia))
and was quite within normal usage. Yes, Turing may not have exclusively
engaged in ephebophilic sexual relationships I don't know.

You'll note in a sibling comment I mentioned Epstein being a "convicted
paedophilia" and noted in parentheses the actual crime. The term is in quotes
as this is how media referred to him. There are accusations of [non-exclusive]
paedophilic activities against him but AFAIK no such conviction. Mass media
tends, as you intimate, to refer to all those convicted of sexual activity
with minors to be "paedophiles" but I felt I'd gone to reasonable pains to
avoid wrongly doing the same.

------
dang
This site (edit: I mean the site of the current URL) seems to have stolen the
content and contains no attribution.
[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/turing-papers-
tha...](http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/turing-papers-that-cracked-
nazi-code-found/story-
fnb64oi6-1227203530706?nk=d934b76c676b15ff264dcca02e78a003) has the story, so
we changed to that, but its paywall seems worse than what HN will tolerate, so
we put it back. This is unsatisfactory.

Can anyone suggest a better URL?

Edit: Sorry, it seems I got this wrong and the original post was just fine:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8993631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8993631).
(That might mean it was other sites ripping off MKWeb and not the other way
around. So I'm glad we didn't change the URL after all.)

~~~
adamseabrook
[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/turing-papers-
tha...](http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/turing-papers-that-cracked-
nazi-code-found/story-fnb64oi6-1227203530706)

~~~
itcmcgrath
Protip: Paste URL into Google Search, click result.

No paywall.

Same works with a lot of news sites that don't show paywalls on search
traffic, but do on other referrals.

~~~
antimora
Thanks, it works.

Here is a URL from the search result:

[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Fturing-
papers-that-cracked-nazi-code-found%2Fstory-
fnb64oi6-1227203530706&ei=PTDRVNiWAcj5ywPuw4KoBw&usg=AFQjCNHnkJqQn2286xVNI8q-NcmlPWXmXQ&sig2=4LhtjWEuurVudoQ78dfGJQ)

------
logicallee
There is something really interesting about this title (phrasing or how it
reads) but I can't put my finger on it.

Anyone?

~~~
andrewchoi
Maybe it's that you want to stop after "found"? Leave it as: Alan Turing's
notes found.

~~~
logicallee
Yes, that's it you've found it. It's an interesting effect: "Alan Turing's
notes found...being used as roof insulation at Bletchley Park". It's a very
unexpected continuation of the sentence. (If you know the end you'd expect it
to be written "Alan Turing's notes being used in roof insulation at Bletchley
park" if that's the main point.) Thanks.

~~~
userbinator
As far as UK headlines go, this is one of the more readable ones. There's a
trend of compressing them to the point that they sometimes become ambiguous
with humourous alternative meanings; something like:

"Alan Turing notes roof insulation"

------
j2kun
These notes don't particularly seem very important. On the other hand, I
always thought it would be interesting to have an art piece that is like
"famous mathematicians notes at the moment when the inspiration struck."

~~~
rodgerd
"The documents also included the only known examples of Banbury sheets, a
technique devised by the mathematician Alan Turing to accelerate the process
of decrypting Nazi messages. No other examples have ever been found."

Was the third paragraph too hard to reach?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
The structure and use of Banbury Sheets appears to have been well known prior
to this discovery? TBH I'd say a specific piece of paper someone drew or wrote
on isn't important if we know the content of that paper already; but I know
many would disagree.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Well, sure. Original, handwritten documents are almost always considered more
valuable/important than nth-generation copies.

E=MC^2 is going to be a lot more valuable in Einstein's handwriting than it is
in this post. An original, signed Declaration of Independence or Magna Carta
is a national treasure, but a printed copy won't be worth more than the cost
of printing.

~~~
xxs
AFAIK Einstein didn't write it actually as E=mc^2 but used square root
instead.

~~~
dalke
[http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/E_mc2/www/](http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/E_mc2/www/)
says the original, translated from German, was the text "If a body gives off
the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by L/c²", that is,
m = L / c². L was used for energy at that time, instead of E.

There is no square root. If you include the momentum term it's E²/c² - p² =
m²c², which solving for E gives a square root, leading to
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_equation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_equation)
.

------
clapas
This man was literally inventing modern computing and cryptography. Those
papers must be very valuable for collectionists. This reminds me that I got to
know recently about the famous Turing test being passed. Amazing. What a
vision.

~~~
IshKebab
The Turing test hasn't been passed yet. Don't let those chatbot publicity
stunts fool you.

~~~
jackweirdy
Not to mention it’s not really a “test” so much as a thought experiment. It’s
far too loosely designed to be a real test.

~~~
throwawayaway
it's a test, but few consider it from the opposite angle, the robot passes,
the human fails.

