On the TV about Turing

Very short interview about on BBC NW news Alan Turing at the Museum of Science and Industry, next to The Baby.

Where was Alan Turing's office at Manchester?

So sitting here in the Alan Turing Building I was wondering where the great man used to sit and think. The Mathematics Department was housed in the attic of the John Owens Building until about 1952 when the department moved to the Williamson Building. I went to the university archive but all we could find was his personnel record (a single index card) and an entry in the 1953-54 University Calendar. It is not clear where the Computing Machine Laboratory would have been when it started in 1948. My suspicion is that at least at first he was in that attic. The reverse of the card has his home address and a newspaper obituary.







The address in Hale is new to me, but I think the one in Wilmslow has a blue plaque.

EIT and Electric Fish Bill on the TV News

Here is a clip of me on BBC NW Tonight the interview was by Stuart Flinders.

• The fish are Black Ghost Knife Fish and we bought them from Oasis Aquarium in Manchester
  
• Why is the idea behind the moment tensors? These were described by Habib Ammari at the EIT meeting and in his book. My hypothesis is that the fish can detect the difference between the moment tensors of the objects.
  
• Details on the science behind the electric fish can be found in Mark Nelson's talk the week before in Manchester. The sldes and a video stream of the talk are on line.
  
• I am not actually "doing experiments" I leave that to the experts. The fish are in the School of Maths for observation and to stimulate discussion.
  
• Why am I using a Game Boy Advance? It has a plug in module to convert it to a Digital Sampling Oscilloscope and Spectrum Analyser
  
• With the live Fish Cam (user fish password fish) you can see the School of Maths Aquarium yourself. It depends on the light how well you can see, and the knife fish don't like the lights so it is often off.
  

Salients and reverse salients

Which maths department are better than the average of that university and which are worse?

And what are the advantages/disadvantages of each?

I posted a chart to stimulate discussion.