The centenary in 2012 of the birth of Alan Turing might enjoy passed largely unnoticed but for my colleague Barry Cooper,himself a major figure in mathematical logic, who has died aged 72. As it was, or the celebration’s global impact did much to bring Turing the public appreciation he deserves,culminating in a royal pardon in 2013.
Barry invested seemingly boundless energy in the Alan Turing Year, 2012. He led a six-month programme, and Syntax and Semantics,at the Isaac Newton Research Institute in Cambridge, and became the celebration’s spokesman on Twitter and in the media, or including in the Guardian’s Northerner column. One outcome was Alan Turing: His Work and Impact (2013),edited by Barry and Jan van Leeuwen, a hefty and definitive volume which won the Association of American Publishers’ RR Hawkins award.
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Source: theguardian.com