The Imitation Game

[nfmax]

We went to see it last night. It's not a bad movie, so long as you don't expect more than a distant resemblance to Andrew Hodge's book.

For extra bonus Nerd Points, who can identify the various bits of vintage test equipment in the scenes in Alan Turing's Manchester house? 

[LukeW]

I wonder when we'll get it released in Australia, another year or so?

It will probably not give due credit to the Polish mathematicians who originally figured out how to attack Enigma, and it will probably overstate the role of Bombe as a programmable computer, which it wasn't. The Bombes were mechanical machines designed for calculating a fairly specific set of functions, to extract Enigma rotor settings. The Colossus machines, designed by Tommy Flowers to help attack the Lorenz cipher system, were far more significant technologically - they were among the first programmable computers, and they were electronic, not just built from mechanical rotors.

But rants about all that stuff aside, it looks good.

[Yago]

Did it mention he killed himself because of humans rights abuse he suffered at the hands of the UK government?
Sort of "it doesn't matter one jot he saved the modern world from the nazis, gave us the wonder of computers... no he is a puff, we must chemically castrate him"

Sure you are all aware of it here, but believe it or not here in Manchester UK, any mention of him and these facts are always kept from view.

[nfmax]

@LukeW: no it doesn't mention the Poles, but the Bletchley Park action is complete fiction bearing no resemblance to history. The Bombe figures, but really plot-wise it's a McGuffin.

@Yago: this is a big deal, most of the film is flashbacks from the time of the Manchester arrest and interrogation.

If you are looking for a biopic, look elsewhere, but as I said, it's not a bad movie.

[IO390]

It will probably not give due credit to the Polish mathematicians who originally figured out how to attack Enigma, and it will probably overstate the role of Bombe as a programmable computer, which it wasn't. The Bombes were mechanical machines designed for calculating a fairly specific set of functions, to extract Enigma rotor settings. The Colossus machines, designed by Tommy Flowers to help attack the Lorenz cipher system, were far more significant technologically - they were among the first programmable computers, and they were electronic, not just built from mechanical rotors.

I was thinking of going to see it this week, and this is the exact thing I was worried about. The front cover of the radio times last week had a picture of Cumberbatch (quite a fantastic name, don't you think?) and said "the man who broke the enigma code". It sorta makes me want to cry. The media are just cashing in on a good story, as usual.

I'm a little anally retentive about these things, so when a film involves technical information, or it's based on facts which are warped in order to make it more entertaining (and often fail to do so), it means I'm sitting there for two hours getting pissed off. This happened with gravity, argo etc...

[Yago]

It apparently gets a bit worse than that (I read).
Difficult to say without spoiler, paints Turin in a weak and treacherous light you might say.

[German_EE]

The media have a bad record when it comes to getting technical detail right. Some time ago there was a short made for TV movie about Robert Watson-Watt and his development of Radar and the power leads to some of the lab equipment were brown and blue plastic. 

Turing, Einstein, Oppenheimer, Zuse, Wallis, a lot of the scientists from that era are my heroes.

[LukeW]

And yet from what I've seen in the trailer, the Bombe machine looks like they've beautifully reproduced it, realistically.

[mikeselectricstuff]

And yet from what I've seen in the trailer, the Bombe machine looks like they've beautifully reproduced it, realistically.

But the idea that they'd have built the machine, turned it on & just stood around waiting for it to work (and hit the right key first time), before having figured out all the maths etc. was ridiculous dumbing-down.


 

[nfmax]

And yet from what I've seen in the trailer, the Bombe machine looks like they've beautifully reproduced it, realistically.

That was nothing to do with the movie company, that was the Bombe Rebuild project at BP. I had a great visit there during the process, 'hands on' and a chance to talk nerd with guys doing the actual work. Fascinating.

[jhalar]

I wonder when we'll get it released in Australia, another year or so?

According to imdb.com it will be released on Jan 1st 2015 in Australia