this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] Tiger_Man_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

this is not actually correct, he didn't invent the computer, he invented the turings machine

[–] houstoneulers@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I also looked this up and many sources are giving credit to a guy named Charles Babbage. But perhaps this meme creator is defining computer differently.

[–] Tamo240@programming.dev 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Babbage is the creator of the first mechanical Computer (his Difference Engine).

Turing is the father of Computer Science, in that he created a mathematical model for computation (Turing Machines).

[–] jwmgregory@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago

even then the degree to which charles babbage was responsible for his machines is somewhat contested.

even then charles babbage was inventing in an environment that was already highly geared to explore logic as a discipline with many people actively pursuing the same or similar objects of fascination. there are experiments in computation and entire computers far preceding babbage, going so far back as the earliest annals of recorded history.

a lot of people also don’t understand that babbage’s initial inventions weren’t even autonomous or mechanical/electrical. they weren’t computers in the colloquial, modern sense. at first they were basically just arrays of literal physical drawers, that the user had to physically move objects between, that could represent something akin to modern memory. this was rudimentary even at the time - the classical greeks famously were astute mechanist and the best of the wondermakers could make much more than just cranes: think autonomous robots, analog computational orreries, literal fucking lasers powered by the sun. by babbage’s time europeans were intimately familiar with engineering and computational principles far beyond what the average contemporary person realizes. the actual innovation is the conceptual handling of it. without that, babbage just made a fancy shelf.

either way babbage isn’t even remembered very fondly by the field. lovelace was far more influential and had far more intuition and genius to her work.

[–] TomasEkeli@programming.dev 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Computing: invented by an incredible clever gay guy to fight nazis.

Honour his legacy.

[–] lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

A German guy called Konrad Zuse also invented computers around the same time. I honestly never wondered about his relation to the Nazis. I've just looked it up and he never was a party member, yet he worked for the military. Yikes.

Someone should probably make sure he didn't Zola himself

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Being gay didn't contribute to his death. How the state treated him when they found out did. Anytime his name comes up I think about how many horrible people there are in the world who just can't let others be what they are . Fanatics are somewhat evil by nature.

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[–] Hoimo@ani.social 13 points 1 day ago

A language isn't Turing complete if it isn't gay

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

He ended WW2 at least half a year earlier than it would have.

He saved hundreds of thousands of lives, maybe millions.

Then he returned home to England as a war hero, but was instead exiled and chemically castrated for being a homosexual.

Not much later he committed suicide.

It was Alan that first opened my eyes as a child to the senseless violence committed against LGBTQIA+

Every June 23rd I make sure to remember him and all he has done for humanity.

Rip Alan Turing, the father of computer science, i love you.

[–] dragontamer@lemmy.world 107 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Alan Turing, the father of modern computers, has an incredibly depressing ending.

Chemically castrated due to being an illegal homosexual, he died in dishonor over bullshit homophobia and new drugs that the 1950s possessed.

[–] RedSnt@feddit.dk 54 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

And it wasn't until late 2013 that he was pardoned for the crime of "being gay", and ironically TERF island has only gotten worse since then.

[–] MrLLM@ani.social 1 points 1 day ago

That’s embarrassing. Sometimes I wish I could return to monkey

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

i find it hard to say terf island has gotten worse since the 1950s.

[–] RedSnt@feddit.dk 39 points 2 days ago (3 children)

i find it hard to say terf island has gotten worse since the 1950s.

I meant since 2013, because yeah, it did get better for a little while. And now they're policing the bathrooms.

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[–] match@pawb.social 25 points 2 days ago (2 children)

but we avenged him by turning computers gay

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Every UNIX socks post is in memory of Turing. If you don’t agree you’re gay. And if you do agree you’re gay too. Computers are gay and by using one, you’re gay. Jokes on you, by reading this, you’re using a computer. You’re gay. That’s the actual Turing test

[–] match@pawb.social 12 points 1 day ago

turing completemess refers to the idea that any computational system capable of universal data manipulation is completely gay

[–] Flocklesscrow@lemmy.zip 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"For Turing," Aragorn uttered, a cock in each fist.

[–] lemjukes@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)
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[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 13 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I named* my first self-built computer after him! Does this make that machine gay? They put chemicals in the bytes that turn the friggin' hardware gay!

*call me a weirdo but I do often name stuff like household appliances and my trees.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 11 points 1 day ago

ironically they also put chemicals in alan that were supposed to turn him not gay

I do think that this makes you weird (affectionate), and I hope you never change, because your weirdness is wonderful.

[–] Dicska@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My friend's mom occasionally gives full names, like forename+surname and uses them as such

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

I don't go so far. Only my pets get a surname, and it's the family's surname. (Some of the household appliances have kind of melodramatic names though, specially if they break often. Like Solineuza, the washing machine.)

[–] Honytawk@feddit.nl 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The only one who can decide your computer is gay is the computer itself.

[–] TeddE@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Technically true, but as an admin with root priviledges, I can access system private keys and directly manage it's identity, such that it's choice is usually what I told it to want.

Tangent, boy I cannot wait for neurolink to let Grok in my brain. I'm sure it will lead to lots of new ways of thinking for me. 🙃😶😶🙄

Mecha-Hitler my brain, Grok-chan >~<

[–] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

The gayest computer that ever existed was that cunty little bastard on Courage the Cowardly Dog.

[–] owenfromcanada@lemmy.ca 58 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Alan Turing was the father of computer science, but didn't invent the first computer. Arguably the first computer was called the Manchester Baby and was created by folks at the University of Manchester.

Alan Turing was an absolute boss, though. Huge respect.

[–] Honytawk@feddit.nl 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Depends entirely on the definition of computer.

There are so many "inventors of the first computers" it is ridiculous. Almost like creating a complex machine like a computer takes a whole many inventions and people who worked on it over a time span of multiple generations.

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[–] anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The first (turing complete) computer actually build was the Z3.
Not many people know about it, because central Berlin in 1943 was not a healthy place for a computer.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It was 1941, and not seen as valuable by the Germans.

The British built Collosus in 1943 and used it for code breaking.

[–] anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago

It was build in 41 and bombed in 43, which is what I alluded to.

[–] owenfromcanada@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yeah, the Manchester Baby was the first stored-program computer. As others have noticed, you can go down the rabbit hole a long way, depending on what you define as a computer. Fascinating stuff.

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[–] LilB0kChoy@midwest.social 13 points 2 days ago (6 children)

The ENIAC was before that and Charles Babbage's difference engine was before the ENIAC, though I don't think he actually got it out of design

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[–] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 47 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Alan Turing, the inventor of the first computer*, was castrated by the British Government for being gay.

FTFY

*Not exactly, but not to diminish his immense contributions to computer science

[–] Adalast@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago

Thank you. That part got my pedantic ass in a tizzy. Glad someone else mentioned it.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Konrad Zuse invented the first proper computer.

Alan Turing later invented computing.

This distinction is why computer science exists.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 3 points 1 day ago

Turing theories and papers were pre-war. It's those that people remember him for.

[–] Armand1@lemmy.world 47 points 2 days ago (7 children)

I don't think he's necessarily the inventor of the computer. There are a few possible candidates, including Ada Lovelace or Charles Babbage, who were earlier.

[–] First_Thunder@lemmy.zip 27 points 2 days ago

He’s the one who properly started computer theory, I suppose

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 23 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

Babbage invented the computer, Ada invented the programming language that would be used to program it. She even wrote the first ever bug in it.

https://twobithistory.org/2018/08/18/ada-lovelace-note-g.html

"In her “diagram of development,” Lovelace gives the fourth operation as v5 / v4. But the correct ordering here is v4 / v5. This may well have been a typesetting error and not an error in the program that Lovelace devised. All the same, this must be the oldest bug in computing. I marveled that, for ten minutes or so, unknowingly, I had wrestled with this first ever bug."

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[–] ValiantDust@feddit.org 22 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

While Ada Lovelace did not actually help inventing the Analytical Engine, she was arguably a greater visionary than Charles Babbage, who, as I understand it, mostly thought of it in terms of calculations.

This is what she wrote in 1842, one hundred years before the first general purpose computer was actually built (Babbage's Analytical Engine was never built):

[The Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine...Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.

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If computers are gay, that makes AI the homophobic conversion therapy.

[–] Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Maybe it's just me, but he kind of looks a bit like a young Max Verstappen

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