Comment by jgrahamc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jgrahamc | Hacker News Reader

There's some confusion towards the end about Engima and Colossus:

However, his greatest impact came probably through his contribution to cracking the Enigma code, used by the German military during the Second World War. He worked with Gordon Welchman at Bletchley Park in the UK. The famous code-breaking Colossus machine, however, was designed by Tommy Flowers (not by Turing). The British cryptographers built on earlier foundational work by Polish mathematicians Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki and Henryk Zygalski who were the first to break the Enigma code (none of them were even mentioned in the movie). Some say this was decisive for defeating the Third Reich.

Yes, Turing worked on Enigma and the Bombe to automate breaking of the code. However, Colossus wasn't for Engima (it was for Tunny) and Turing didn't work on it. This paragraph seems confused about which is which.

Also, the fact that the Polish who did the original work weren't mentioned in the movie is just one of many things horribly wrong with that movie. It's so bad it shouldn't be considered canon.

  > Polish mathematicians Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki
  > and Henryk Zygalski who were the first to break the Enigma
  > code

I was in ~2010 or so in the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. There was some exhibition related to Enigma there or maybe Enigma device on display (I don't remember what was it exactly now).

The person who toured us around was telling us a brief story of how the Enigma was broken, starting with Bletchley Park. Me or maybe my friend asked who was the first to break Enigma, and he immediately answered that it was Turing, then noticed our puzzled face expressions, and added something along 'ah.. yeah.. and Polish did some minor work too' :). Just an anecdote.

It seems a bit surprising not to mention specifically the harder _naval_ Enigma and the U-boat threat in the context of Turing.

> It's so bad it shouldn't be considered canon.

Since when are movies supposed to be accurate historical references? They are made to be entertaining, so facts get kicked out of the door from Day 1.

It is not like you cannot tell a good story here without embellishing and distorting it.

As it happens, Verity Stobb panned the movie (justifiably, IMHO), in her splendidly British style, for much more than just getting the facts wrong.

https://www.theregister.com/2015/01/26/verity_stob_turing_mo...

> It is not like you cannot tell a good story here without embellishing and distorting it.

You can't tell a complex story in a short time and numerous characters on screen. In books you can. In movies it's borderline impossible and therefore simplifying/dumbing things down is a filter you need to apply first.

you don't have to make stuff up - that's not simplifying things.

And dumbing-down is not equivalent to simplifying, unless you do it in a dumb way.

Talented writers take one issue, or one theme, from the big picture and weave a story from that.

Please share with me one movie with a complex storyline involving dozens of characters, you know, like in real life, then. I am curious.

Midway was an example of of a movie where the director and writer were concerned about historical accuracy, and so avoided the sort of risible nonsense that Stobb lampooned in the imitation Game. I am now curious as to whether you will respond in the way that I expect.

Canon? Isn't Turing being canonised the problem in the first place?

In a fictional universe a medium (book, movie etc.) being "canon" is the original author's seal of approval claiming "this happened".

I think this is a joking extrapolation to the real life, and the "author" here is, in best case real life, or as an approximation, historians' position based on evidence.

Correct. That's what I meant.

> Yes, Turing worked on Enigma and the Bombe

Since it wasn't linked, Bombe was based on the Polish Bomba machine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomba_(cryptography)

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