- Alan Turing (plato.standford.edu)
Alan Turing (1912–1954) never described himself as a philosopher, but his 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” is one of the most frequently cited in modern philosophical literature. It gave a fresh approach to the traditional mind-body problem, by relating it to the mathematical concept of computability he himself had introduced in his 1936–7 paper “On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem.” His work can be regarded as the foundation of computer science and of the artificial intelligence program.
- Canopus (stars.astro.illinois.edu)
CANOPUS (Alpha Carinae). As northerners drive south on winter vacations, if they are familiar with the sky they encounter something of a surprise. Just below the sky’s brightest star, Canis Major’s Sirius, is the SECOND brightest star, Canopus, 30 degrees and almost exactly south of Mirzam, one of Sirius’s announcing star.
