Holla Amigos!

In this topic, I am going to introduce some of my most favorite scientists that I would like to meet when I will be sent to hell in the afterworld (=jahaane aakherat). I admire these guys very much and I am very glad that they too will be present in hell. Since you guys are mostly computer engineers, I'll start with Alan Turing today. Tomorrow, I will introduce Kolmogorov and then will continue with Shanon and others..


1-Alan Turing (1912-1954)

Why I'd like to see him: Simply, the father of modern computer science. Turing provided an influential formalisation of the concept of the algorithm and computation with the Turing machine. He made significant contributions to artificial inteligence and cryptography as well.

Since 1966, the Turing Award has been given annually by the Association for Computing Machinery to a person for technical contributions to the computing community. It is widely considered to be the computing world's equivalent to the Nobel Prize.


Why he will go to hell: He was gay and he commited suicide! In 1952, Turing was convicted of "acts of gross indecency" after admitting to a sexual relationship with a man in Manchester. He was required to undergo hormone therapy. Turing died after eating an apple laced with cyanide in 1954.

2-Andrey Kolmogorov (1903-1987)

Why I'd like to see him: He put probability theory on a firm basis by making it an exact axiomatic science like Geometry and Algebra. He also made major advances in other academic fields including topology, intuitionistic logic, turbulence, classical mechanics and computational complexity. Kolmogorov is widely considered one of the prominent mathematicians of the 20th century.

Kolmogorov's ideas on how concepts such as randomness and complexity should be clearly defind were instrumental in my own work on statistical multirate systems. I very eagerly follow the emerging theoy of algorithmic complexity originally started by Kolmogrov and currently being advanced by Gregory Chaitin.

Why he will go to hell: He was an illegitimate child (his parents were not married when he was born), drank Vodka and had so many other wrong beliefs ! I would prefer a 30 minutes discussion with Kolmogrov in hell to a 1000 years of living with all the prophets and other holy men in heaven.