"Alan Turing’s ideas still influence research"

Founded in 2015, the new Turing Centre at ETH Zurich brings together researchers and students of science, engineering and humanities. In an with ETH News, Managing Director Giovanni Sommaruga and his New Zealand co-directors Diane Proudfoot and Jack Copeland explain why the Centre inspires blue skies research and what it all has to do with 'child machines'. «Alan Turing changed the world»: Giovanni Sommaruga, Managing Director at the Turing Centre (in the middle), and his New Zealand co-directors Diane Proudfoot and Jack Copeland. (Photo: ETH Zurich / Florian Meyer) The idea of founding a Turing Centre in Zurich arose in 2012 when Jack Copeland, Distinguished Professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and a specialist in mathematical logic and the philosophy of computing, met Giovanni Sommaruga, a lecturer in the philosophy of the formal sciences at ETH Zurich, at an international conference entitled 'Turing under Discussion'. In 2014 the Centre took shape when Jack Copeland and his colleague Diane Proudfoot, Head of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, spent four months in Zurich as visiting professors. Finally, in 2015, the Executive Management Board of ETH Zurich agreed to establish the Turing Centre Zurich (TCZ) in the Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences. Professor Proudfoot, Professor Copeland, can you explain what makes ETH Zurich the right place for the Turing Centre? Diane Proudfoot