Author: Alan Turing

Cited by

• Scott Hutchins (1)
  • IN: A Working Theory of Love (2012) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The question which we put earlier will not be quite definite until we have specified what we mean by the word "machine." It is natural that we should wish to permit every kind of engineering technique to be used in our machines. We also wish to allow the possibility that an engineer or team of engineers may construct a machine which works, but whose manner of operation cannot be satisfactorily described by its constructors because they have applied a method which is largely experimental. Finally, we wish to exclude from the machines men born in the usual manner.
    FROM: Computing Machinery and Intelligence, (1950), Essay, UK
• Neal Stephenson (1)
  • IN: Crypto-Nomicon (1999) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: There is a remarkably close parallel between the problems of the physicist and those of the cryptographer. The system on which a message is enciphered corresponds to the laws of the universe, the intercepted messages to the evidence available, the keys for a day or a message to the evidence available, the keys for a day or a message to important constants which have to be determined. The correspondence is very close, but the subject matter of cryptography is very easily dealt with by discrete machinery, physics not so easily.
    FROM: Intelligent Machinery, (1948), Essay, UK