

Turing's bombe pips Concorde in mechanical engineers' poll - buro9
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-29512623

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cholmon
I had to read the article to understand what on earth the title means. I guess
"pips" is slang for "beats" or "surpasses"?

It's also interesting that Turing's "bombe" is not capitalized, even in its
Wikipedia article, while its counterpart, "Enigma", is.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe)

~~~
jgrahamc
Yes, it's informal British language:
[http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/pip?q=p...](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/pip?q=pips#pip-6)

"Defeat by a small margin or at the last moment"

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buro9
Strange, I only submitted this to give context to the other thing I submitted
which is the story of the RB211 Rolls Royce engine that bankrupted the company
and yet helped it to be re-born as a stronger entity:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8420407](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8420407)

As an added bonus, having stumbled upon the story of the RB211 from the short
mention in the above-linked BBC article, there is a free talk at the Royal
Aeronautical Society in London by a former Director or Engineering at Rolls
Royce on the RB211, the engineering feat that it was to produce it and the
company at that time... the talk is on the 10th November 2014, and the link is
in the other discussion thread that is linked above.

PS: Nice to see that HN really has a soft spot for Turing.

~~~
louthy
> PS: Nice to see that HN really has a soft spot for Turing.

One of the original hackers surely?

~~~
buro9
Pythagoras would have that crown IMHO, Turing was relatively recent.

I wonder whether there can be said to be some overlap between the non-
Dialectic philosophers of old and the pioneers of computing.

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rwmj
By coincidence I just finished "New Shape in the Sky" which is a pretty good
book about the development of Concorde. There are two versions -- a 1982
version which you can pick up for 1p + postage from Amazon, and a recent
version which is super expensive.

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Concorde-New-Shape-Ken-
Owen/dp/07106...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Concorde-New-Shape-Ken-
Owen/dp/0710602138)

Sadly I never had enough money to travel on Concorde, so it looks like I will
never travel faster than sound [relative to the surface of the earth anyway].

~~~
aedocw
If you're interested in the Concorde, this thread on an aviation forum is
incredible. Starts with a guy asking why there was no auxiliary power unit
onboard, and shortly turns into a rolling conversation including original
design engineers, pilots, flight engineers and cabin crew. Super entertaining!

[http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/423988-concorde-
question.html](http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/423988-concorde-question.html)

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mietek
It would have been nice to mention that the Turing bombe was an improvement on
the earlier “bomba”, invented by the Marian Rejewski. The Beeb even attempted
a recent article about it:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28167071](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28167071)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomba_(cryptography)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomba_\(cryptography\))

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JonnieCache
Don't miss the bit at the bottom about Crossness Engine House. Jawdropping.
That thing was the datacenter of its day. But it looks like a church!

[https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Crossness+pumping+station](https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Crossness+pumping+station)

