Christopher – “The Imitation Game”
The movie industry has benefited from computers for years. Finally, here comes the great movie about a computer scientist. Thank you, Hollywood.
The imitation game is a movie based on the book Alan Turing: the enigma. The title of the movie, I guess, is inspired by Turing’s article “Computing Machinery and Intelligence“. The title of the first section is “the imitation game”. The discussion is can machine think like a human?
This movie costs more than 7 millions of dollars! The Turing Machine shown in movie is a detailed copy from the real Turing Machine displayed in The National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park. Google sponsored the first show in New York and hosted a competition on “breaking the code”. Interestingly, the New York Times posted the crossword game Nov 2014 before the movie is on. The same crossword game has been posted in 1942 used to recruit people working for cracking the enigma code in world war II. The winners of the game are given flight tickets to UK Bletchley Park where Turing has worked on the enigma project.
A famous line in this movie is “sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine”. In the enigma project, Turing worked as if he was driven by some magic power. Initially, he was just a little potato in the team, and everybody dislikes him because he cannot work with others. But he respected his inner voice and insisted working his own way. It looks like he did not care most of the things, but live for things he really loves. He stayed in office working and refused to social with his fellow colleagues. He ignored his authoritative boss and wrote to Churchill for help. He proposed to Joan so she can continue staying in the project although he did not feel fun even dance with girls. He dashes out of his engagement party to test an idea he inspired in the party. Sitting in front of screen, it is very touching to feel the thrills and pains he went through. Indeed, if you never ever worked for something that makes you feel lost, and if you never experienced the indulgence of work, you never have lived.
I don’t know how many people in your life you have addressed to “the dearest friend”. In this movie, Turing has received one such note. Math classes were simply boring, so Turing and his friend pass some encryption back and forth for fun. There is one such note “see you in two weeks, the dearest friend”. Turing waited; however, all the classmates were back to school, but not him. Yes, sometimes, the never-started-love stories are most romantic. Turing named his Turing Machine “Christopher” and worked with him rest of his life.
Between jail and hormone therapy, Turing chose hormone therapy, so he can work with his Christopher; and between not able to work and death, he chose death. I am willing to believe that computer science history can be different if he could live longer.
To add a bit sugar at the end of my essay, I’d like to share a funny scene in the movie. This nerdy, rock-hard, stubborn Turing listened to Joan’s advice, bought a bag of apples, and walked in front of his colleagues, smile “hey, A …Apple?” Everybody in the movie laughs, and everybody in front of the movie also laughs.