Alan Turing Google doodle is the toughest yet

New Delhi: The Alan Turing doodle that Google posted on the occasion of British mathematician and the father of computing's 100th birth anniversary is easily the most cryptic Google doodle till date.

Google has brought to digital life one of Turing's incredible work (and an eventful life that ended in tragedy), the theoretical Turing machine that he proposed in a mathematical paper. This Turing machine doodle, unlike most other doodles isn't meant for general Google users but is instead targeted towards those with a knowledge of computer programming - a science of which Turin was a pioneer.

While the initial task on hand seems to be spelling out the letters g-o-o-g-l-e in binary in six steps. On successfully completing each step the letters of the greyed-out Google logo get filled with colour, one at a time. But Google wouldn't have let its tribute to the famous code breaker get decoded in a breeze. "If you get it the first time, try again... it gets harder!," Google said in a post on its official blog.

On the occasion of the 100th birth anniversary of Alan Turing, a pioneer in the field of computing, we take a look back at computers.

Image: 1929: Inside the tote room at Ascot race course showing the tote machines.
The first combined computer-calculator and wristwatch to be produced, known as 'Pulsar', on show at the International Watch and Jewellery Trades Fair at Wembley, London.
1955: Rev Ellison, technical consultant on the Univac project working on a control panel which gives direct access to Univac. This allows him to see exactly how the indexing is progressing and to check it with the bible he is holding.
1946: A utility model of the programmable electronic computer ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer) at Welwyn Garden City.
1946: A utility model of the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer). It was later revealed that the first had been the British wartime code-breaking machine, 'Colossus'.
Sixteen year old Christine Andrews is the first person to use an 'instant information machine' called a Directomat at Victoria station. The machine gives answers to the 120 most often asked questions at the enquiry office.
1959: Dr HA Thomas, manager of the Instrumentation and Control section of Unilever's engineering department gives the Faraday lecture at London's Festival Hall. His subject is 'Automation' and here he demonstrates the workings of an electronic calculator or computer.
1951: London Windmill Theatre girls Wanda Altar and Rae Berry play a game called 'Nim' on the Ferranti Nimrod Digital Computer on show at the Science Museum Festival of Britain Exhibition. The game demonstrates the basic principles of computing.
1958: A woman operating an 'electronic brain' used by a German mail order business to open letters, take details, check on stock availibility and price, invoice orders and inform departments concerned.
1936: The new robot post office sorting machine being used in the foreground, and the old manual method in the background.
1963: A computer being used at William Hill Ltd bookmakers.
1956: Sheilah Ablett at work with the E101 computer at the British Institute of Management in London.
1978: The Interbank desk of the Midland Bank International Division, where the exchange rate is called.
A man replaces a magnetic tape data storage drive in an early model office computer, mid 1970s.
A woman in a knit dress with flared sleeves works at an early model desktop computer made by Servus, 1970s.

images

Alan Turing Google doodle is the toughest yet

Alan Turing machine doodle displaces the Stanislaw Lem doodle as the smartest doodle till date.

Alan Turing Google doodle now overtakes the 60th anniversary of Stanislaw Lem's first publication doodle as the smartest Google doodle till date. It was a pity that a doodle as great as the one Google created to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Polish science-fiction novelist, philosopher and satirist Stanislaw Lem's first publication was not put up on Google home pages across the globe but was only limited to European countries.

The doodle was inspired by Daniel Mroz's illustrations for The Cyberiad, a series of short stories by Lem was also a multi-level puzzle.