The Life of Alan Turing

Alan Turing was born on June 23rd, 1912 in the Maida Vale region of the Greater London area. He was a mathematician, theoretical biologist, logician, cryptanalyst, and a computer scientist. Although he is not the original designer or creator of the computer, he is widely regarded as the creator of computer science and artificial intelligence. He showed signs of genius as a student in school, although his inclination towards math and science wasn't seen as a good thing by his teachers. One of his teachers even wrote "I hope he will not fall between two stools. If he is to stay at public school, he must aim at becoming educated. If he is to be solely a Scientific Specialist, he is wasting his time at a public school" (Hodges 26). He would later go on to study at King's College, Cambridge and then get his PhD from Princeton. He also developed a theoretical machine called a Turing Machine. Basically, a Turing Machine is a very simple computer that consists of a long strip of paper, and the machine can write/read the strip and move the strip around. It can then be used to solve mathematical functions or decide a formal language. These machines were abstract and not actually built, but the idea of the Turing Machine is important foundation for all of the computers we use today.

Alan Turing aged 16

During WWII, the Germans had invented a way to encrypt their messages to each other, so that if the allies intercepted those messages it would be impossible to understand it. These messages were created with what was called the Enigma machine, which would scramble letters typed into it in a certain way to make messages appear as gibberish. The message could later be decrypted with another enigma machine and reappear as the original text. These were first used during WWI, but after a way to decrypt them was discovered they were made more advanced in 1938. This gave the Germans a big advantage over the Allied Forces, and unless a way to decrypt these machines were to be discovered, the Allies would be forced to fight an uphill battle all throughout the war. To solve this issue, Alan Turing created a machine called The Bombe. It was a physical machine built upon the idea of the Turing Machine that would decrypt enigma messages that were put into it. While he initially struggled to get funding to produce a large amount of these machines, after personally writing a letter to Winston Churchill about it over 200 were produced during the war. The fact that the allies were able to decrypt enigma messages was kept a secret, and as a result it turned the tide of the war and helped lead the allies to victory.

In January 1952, Alan Turing’s house was burgled. His male partner at the time said the suspect was an acquaintance of his, and it was reported to the police. While reporting it, Turing admitted that he was in a homosexual relationship, which was illegal in the UK at the time. He was given the option of either going to prison, or undergoing hormonal treatment. He chose the hormonal treatment, and as a result became impotent and developed gynecomastia. He was also now a convicted felon, which barred from continuing work with the GCHQ and denied him entry to the United States. In 1954, he committed suicide by lacing an apple with cyanide and eating it.

In August 2009, the then Prime Minister of the UK Gordon Brown issued an apology for the treatment of Turing, and on December 24th, 2013 Queen Elizabeth II issued a pardon for his conviction. In 1966, the Turing Award was created, which is a prize for theoretical and real contributions to the field of computer science, and is the highest honor in the computing community, considered to be just as valuable as a Nobel Prize. In 1999, Time Magazine named Alan Turing as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century. Although it has not been confirmed, it is rumored that the original Apple logo was also a tribute to Alan Turing. Today he is revered throughout the world as the father of modern computer science, and if it weren't for his work, computers as we know them today would not exist.

Apple Logo 1976-1998

-Erik B.

Sources:

Alan Turing Aged 16. Digital image. N.p., 25 Jul. 2015. Web. 11 Oct. 2015. 

Apple Logo. Digital image. Pixabay. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2015.  

Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing: The Enigma of Intelligence. London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1985. Print. 

Prompt #4

After reading a blog about materials engineering and a scholarly article about materials engineering, you can really pick out the differences between the two. The scholarly article starts by jumping right into what they are talking about, and what they have researched, as the blog starts off by saying "Researchers of the University of Alicante". This implies that they read some sort of scholarly article first and blogged about the information from the article written by the "researchers". I have noticed that the blog has a clear title before the rest of the blog, while the scholarly article only uses keywords to say what the article is about. The article comes off very long with all the information included, while the blog is fairly short with just a summary of the information from another article. Not only is the article longer, but the text is a lot smaller than the blog text as well. The article uses a lot of graphs and tables, all in black and white, while the blog has colored pictures showing what the blog is talking about. The scholarly articles hold all of the research, as the blog only holds a summary or a small part of the research in it. People would probably trust the scholarly article more because it has been written by a professional, and has all the information in it, although the blog is a lot easier to read because the length is much shorter, and still has a good amount of information that can be used. Scholarly articles are really aimed towards other scholars or professionals along with students doing research, as blogs have an audience of usually only the general public. Blogs are probably created so the general public don't have to read the whole article about what they want to know, and they can get an easy summary from the blog and still learn a lot from it. We can conclude that a scholarly article will give an incredible amount of information, but the articles end up very long and they are usually aimed at other scholars professionals and students, and also that blogs give a good amount of information on what we want to learn, and are really aimed at the general public and helping people read about what they want to learn.

-Alex Brown

Sources:
Mckeown, Neil B., Prof., Bader Gahnem, Dr., Kadhum J. Msayib, Dr., Peter M. Budd, Dr., Carrin E. Tattershall, Dr., Khalid Mahmood, Dr., Siren Tan, David Book, Dr., Henrietta W. Langmi, Dr., and Allen Walton, Dr. "Hydrogen Storage;microporous Materials;nanostructures;polymers."Towards Polymer-Based Hydrogen Storage Materials: Engineering Ultramicroporous Cavities within Polymers of Intrinsic Microporosity. Angewandte, 10 Feb. 2006. Web. 06 Oct. 2015. <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.200504241/full>.

Austin-Morgan, Tom. "Self-repairing Polymeric Material." Self-repairing Polymeric Material. Findlay Media, 01 Oct. 2015. Web. 06 Oct. 2015. <http://www.materialsforengineering.co.uk/engineering-materials-news/self-repairing-polymeric-material/107903/>.

Why People Choose Engineering

Why You Should Choose Engineering

Engineering is one of the most important majors in the world. It is also one of the oldest things. As society develops and improves, engineering makes life better than before. Studying engineering is a personal choice that only you can make; so what are the three best reasons why you should choose engineering?

#1 – Engineering can make money

        What an engineering degree worth? The average salary of an engineer in 2015 is $65,980. That's much higher than the other jobs. I think there is not many careers offer this sort of opportunity to gain experience and explore the world than engineering do. Also, it is easier for engineering students to find job than the other majors. Year after year, engineering tops the list of majors with the highest average starting salary, which means you can get a great paid job as soon as you graduate.

#2 – What you learn is more close to life

        I think engineering can offer you an opportunity that you can learn skills which you can apply anywhere. Like mechanical engineering, it's basically a branch of physics. Physics is everything in life, whether you think about it or not. Engineering covers a mathematical portion of physics. It's not physics, but it can be if you think about it enough. Engineering is also the basics of many things we do as humans. From creating buildings, to making the world wide web... That's all engineering. So I guess engineering is also another way to say "the building blocks" of human technology.

#3 – Engineering is Interesting

        Do you know engineers invented most of the things we use now?  Although it's not very easy to study engineering major, it will be very interesting when you use those skills. After you solved one problem, you will have a sense of accomplishment. You will get energy and be eager to solve another problem. Now you will feel engineering is interesting.
-Hongyuan Xue
Citation:
"Civil Engineer: Salary." Civil Engineer Salary Information. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Oct. 2015.

Electrical Engineering

History: Electrical Engineering is one of the oldest branches of engineering that dates back to the late 19^th century. Some of its prominent pioneers include Thomas Edison who invented the electric light bulb, Gugliemo Marconi who invented the radio and Philo T Farnsworth, the father of the television. It is amazing how we have lost count of electrical inventions since then as more and more electrical engineers turn ideas and concepts about electricity into practical systems.

Source: Internet Billboards

Definition: An electrical engineer designs, develops, tests and supervises the manufacturing of electrical equipment, such as electric motors, radar and navigation systems, communication systems and power generation equipment. This job description definitely sounds like a lot of work but it all depends on the firm one is working for.  Electrical engineers generally spend most their time in offices but may also visit sites to observe a problem or complex equipment.

Jobs and Salaries: The profession is a rewarding one and according to PayScale an electrical engineer earns an average salary of $70,675 per year with the compensation increasing with experience. EE graduates branch out into specialized categories such as communications system design, control systems, electrical power generation and distribution, electromagnetic waves, integrated circuit design, process instrumentation and control, robotic systems design, and telecommunications.

The future: Employment of electrical and electronics engineers was projected to grow by 4 percent between 2012 and 2022, because of these professionals' "versatility in developing and applying emerging technologies," highlighted the Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to Jim Lucas in his piece in on Live Science,  applications for emerging technologies include studying red electrical flashes, called sprites, which hover above some thunderstorms. Victor Pasko, an electrical engineer at Penn State, and his colleagues have developed a model for how the strange lightning evolves and disappears. This is just a peek into the growing technological advancements in electrical engineering.

-Panashe, M

Sources:

"Summary." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 8 Jan. 2014. Web. 04 Oct. 2015. <http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm>.

 "Electrical Engineer Salary (United States) »." Electrical Engineer Salary (United States). PayScale, n.d. Web. 04 Oct. 2015. <http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Electrical_Engineer/Salary>.

 Lucas, By Jim. "What Is Electrical Engineering?" LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 26 Aug. 2014. Web. 04 Oct. 2015. <http://www.livescience.com/47571-electrical-engineering.html>.

Different Field Same Purpose

Engineering is one of the most broad majors in the entire world. Not only are there hundreds of ways to go about the field currently but that number keeps increasing. As our world evolves, new things are being made and in order to maintain these things, new engineers are a necessity. This is both good and bad because it's great that new things are being created but it is also a lot of work. Things get made and there are not enough engineers to tend to that product/company which is why the demand for engineers is currently so high. This is good news for future engineers like ourselves because it shows that after college, getting a job will not be difficult. When engineers are asked what their career path is going to be, the secondary question by mostly every person is "What kind of engineer?" For a person like me, it's a really difficult question to answer because I haven't made up my mind so I never know what to say. This goes along perfectly with the reason why many engineers turn away from the field. Although there are many different areas to go into, sometimes it is just too stressful and people decide engineering is not the right choice for them. The other thing I like about all the engineering options is perfecting a certain part of it. In my opinion, I would much rather focus on a little part of the field and master it rather than knowing a little about the entire field as a whole. There are becoming enough engineers in the world where each one is able to become knowledgable with one part which in the ends helps our society. With more engineers perfecting little parts, new things will continue to be discovered, made, and fixed more efficiently.

-Dominic W.

Work Cited

• http://www.aboriginalaccess.ca/adults/types-of-engineering
• http://typesofengineeringdegrees.org/

Prompt #9

In the 21st century, computers can be found everywhere. They exist in our cars, in our pockets, in our refrigerators, and now even in our watches. They are an essential part of our society, and without them the world we know would be very different. There are some people who are worried by this, and wonder if our increasing dependence on computers can have its pitfalls. While that may or may not be a valid fear, the positives of using computers have become more and more apparent. We all know the use of computers has allowed our productivity to grow, but not many people are familiar with another positive aspect of them: saving lives.

It is a nice summer day in Bangor, North Wales on August 24th, 2005. A girl and her family decides to go to the swimming pool in town for a day of relaxation. The pool is 110 feet long, and is 12.5 feet deep at the deep end, making it one of the deepest pools in Wales. While swimming in the deep end, the girl suddenly sinks to the bottom of the deep end of the pool. An alarm is sounded. This alerts the lifeguard, and he is able to save the girl.

Who noticed the girl and sounded the alarm? It was not her family or other swimmers in the pool. In fact, it was not a human at all. Two years earlier, the Gwynedd Council installed a system in the pool called Poseidon, which is a computer designed to detect drownings in pools and alert any lifeguards on duty. Poseidon noticed her immobilized body at the bottom of the pool and then alerted the lifeguard. The lifeguard on duty was able to resuscitate her, she was taken to a hospital, and later made a full recovery.

Graphic showing how the Poseidon system works (in French).

According to the website for Poseidon, the system has saved dozens of lives in swimming pools across Europe and North America, and that number is only continuing to grow.  Due to the loud, crowded, and humid atmosphere of indoor pools, even with a lifeguard on duty it is still not possible for him or her to notice every thing that is happening in the pool. Even while keeping full attention, it is still possible for a drowning to go unnoticed in the crowd of swimmers. Thanks to computers like Poseidon, this becomes less of a worry. This is just one of many examples of how our increased usage of computers is positively influencing our society, and we can expect to see more stories like this as time goes on and more similar technologies are developed to save lives.

 -Erik B.

Sources:

"Poseidon Computer-Aided Drowning Detection System, Helps Lifeguard Rescue Drowning Girl in Bangor Swimming Pool, North Wales on August 24th 2005." Poseidon Computer-Aided Drowning Detection System, Helps Lifeguard Rescue Drowning Girl In... PR Newswire, 31 Aug. 2005. Web. 04 Oct. 2015. 

Poseidon Graphic. Digital image. Poséidon - Le Système. Vision IQ, 2 July 2013. Web. 4 Oct. 2015. 

Ranger, Steve. "Computer Saves Drowning Girl - CNET." CNET. CNET, 2 Sept. 2005. Web. 04 Oct. 2015.

http://www.poseidon.fr/fr/news.html

Biomaterials in materials engineering

What is Biomaterials? The Oxford dictionary defines Biomaterials as "synthetic or natural material suitable for use in constructing artificial organs and prostheses or to replace bone or tissue".Biomaterials is a field in which you study how different materials work with living organisms. Materials that may be talked about in this field or used with living organisms could be pacemakers, artificial joints, artery stents, along with multiple other materials.
What classes you need for Biomaterials engineering. Throughout college you will need to take Intro to engineering, mathematics courses such as calculus classes, science courses such as chemistry courses, and general biology courses. different engineering classes and anatomy classes are also needed for this major. Many students in this field end up going into medical school or graduate school, and may be given a job at different companies, they may become research scientists, or teachers/professors, there are many different jobs for someone who goes into the biomaterials engineering field. Biomaterials engineering is a great way to learn about different materials, along with learning about biology and the human body and how it works. Biomaterials is a great field to go into if you like to help people and like both medical and engineering majors. Biomaterial engineers have learned a lot about different materials, what works best for certain parts of the body, what's cheapest to make and how it will help people. The field is fantastic to go into, there are a lot of jobs, and it's a nice way to help out others in society.

Example of a biomaterial for a full hip replacement

image source: Image

-Alex Brown

Sources:
"Alfred University : Inamori School of Engineering : Biomaterials Engineering (BME)." Alfred University : Inamori School of Engineering : Biomaterials Engineering (BME). Alfred University, n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2015. <http://engineering.alfred.edu/undergrad/bme/>.
"Definition of Biomaterial in English:." Biomaterial: Definition of Biomaterial in Oxford Dictionary (American English) (US). Oxford Dictionaries, n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2015. <http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/biomaterial?q=biomaterials>.
"Engineered Biomaterials and Tissue Systems." - Biomedical Engineering. Purdue University, n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2015. <https://engineering.purdue.edu/BME/Research/BTE>.