Turing

First Year Seminar (FYSE 1280)

Breaking the Code: The Enigma of Alan Turing - Fall 2009

Professors

Bob Martin, BiHall 635, ext 5923

Email: rmartin@middlebury.edu

Office hours: MWF 11:05-12:05, TuTh 3:00-4:00, and by appointment

Michael Olinick, WNS 314, ext 5559

Email: molinick@middlebury.edu

Office hours: MWF 11:05-12:05, TuTh 3:00-4:00, and by appointment

Course Overview:

British mathematician Alan Turing broke the German military's prized Enigma cipher in World War II, created the foundations of modern computer science, and pioneered the fields of artificial intelligence ("Can Machines Think?") and neural networks. Turing was arrested for homosexuality and forced to undergo hormone treatments that may have led to his apparent suicide by cyanide poisoning at a relatively young age. His brilliant achievements and tragic death have been the subject of biographies, essays, plays, novels, and films. We will explore the life and works of this remarkable individual in the context of the World War II and its aftermath. There will be two sections of this seminar meeting in adjacent rooms. At times we will bring all the students and both instructors into the same room for a common lecture or presentation. At other times, we will meet separately to promote better discussions and work on writing.

Prerequisites:

None.

Class Meetings:

MWF 11:15-12:05 in WNS 506/507, M 7:30-10:25 p.m. (video screenings) in WNS 202

Texts:

The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer, David Leavitt, W. W, Norton, 2006

javastructures

The Code Book: The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptology, Simon Singh, Doubleday, 1999, ISBN 0-385-49531-5

Turing (A Novel about Computation), Christos Papadimitriou,The M.I.T. Press, 2003, ISBN 0-262-16218-

The Essential Turing, B. Jack Copeland (editor), Oxford Univ. Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-825080-0

The Little Penguin Handbook (2nd ed.), Lester Faigley, Pearson, 2009, ISBN-13 978-0-205-74339-1

Web Sites:

Prof. Olinick's Web Page

       David Leavitt's Web Page
       Simon Singh's Web page
       Cristos Papadimitriou's Web Page
       B. Jack Copeland's Web page

Grading

Your final grade will be computed from four components: exam1 (in class on Monday, March 15), exam2 (in class on Friday, April 23), a final exam (on Tuesday May 11 from 9am - noon in BiHall 104), and homework. The components will have the following weights:

    exam1 - 20%
    exam2 - 20%
    homework - 20%
    final - 40%

Honor Code

The work you submit must be the result of your own individual effort. You may discuss how to solve homework problems with other students but when it comes to the actual writing of programs or problem sets, your work must be your own. You must write your own solutions without having someone telling you what to write or copying the work of someone else. In particular, you should never have a copy of someone elses work in your possession, either electronically or on paper. It is also your own responsibility to protect your work from unauthorized access by others.

Exams and quizzes, of course, must be entirely your own work.