Alan Turing

By Tom Kirvan

A famed British mathematician and cryptographer, Alan Turing was primarily responsible for breaking the Nazi Enigma code during World War II, providing the Allies with the edge they needed to win the war in Europe and spare – historians have estimated – more than 10 million lives.

Turing’s life was the subject of the 2014 award-winning movie, “The Imitation Game,” which received eight Academy Award nominations and detailed his brilliance as a computer scientist and his role in developing a test for artificial intelligence that is still used today.

“Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine,” Turing said of human ingenuity and the need to challenge perceptions.

Born on June 23, 1912, in London, Turing studied at King’s College, Cambridge, before earning a Ph.D. in mathematical logic from Princeton University in 1938, laying the groundwork for modern computer science.

An avid runner, Turing recorded a personal best of 2:46:03 in the marathon and often ran the 10 miles between the two laboratories where he did his mathematical work, beating colleagues who took public transportation to the office.

Alan Turing*

“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done,” Turing wrote, reflecting on his visionary but grounded approach to science and problem-solving. “Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.”

In 1952, Turing was arrested and charged with “indecency” after a brief relationship with another man. On June 7, 1954, Turing died by suicide after being convicted under Victorian laws as a homosexual and forced to endure chemical castration.

In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a royal pardon, nearly 60 years after he took his own life by cyanide poisoning. The pardon was seen as a long overdue act to restore Turing’s reputation as a British patriot whose reputation had been unnecessarily sullied by an unjust law.

*Elliott & Fry, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons