Alan Turing | |
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![]() Turing in 1936 | |
Born | Alan Mathison Turing 23 June 1912 Maida Vale, London, England |
Died | 7 June 1954 Wilmslow, Cheshire, England | (aged 41)
Cause of death | Cyanide poisoning as an act of suicide[note 1] |
Alma mater | |
Known for | |
Partner | Joan Clarke[note 2] |
Awards | Smith's Prize (1936) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | |
Institutions | |
Thesis | Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals (1938) |
Doctoral advisor | Alonzo Church[2] |
Doctoral students | |
Signature | |
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Alan Mathison Turing OBE FRS (/ˈtjʊərɪŋ/; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist.[5] He was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer.[6][7][8] Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science.[9]
Born in London, Turing was raised in southern England. He graduated in maths from King's College, Cambridge, and in 1938, earned a maths PhD from Princeton University. During the Second World War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre that produced Ultra intelligence. He led Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. Turing devised techniques for speeding the breaking of German ciphers, including improvements to the pre-war Polish bomba method, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine. He played a crucial role in cracking intercepted messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Axis powers in many crucial engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic.[10][11]
After the war, Turing worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he designed the Automatic Computing Engine, one of the first designs for a stored-program computer. In 1948, Turing joined Max Newman's Computing Machine Laboratory at the Victoria University of Manchester, where he helped develop the Manchester computers[12] and became interested in mathematical biology. Turing wrote on the chemical basis of morphogenesis[13][1] and predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, first observed in the 1960s. Despite these accomplishments, he was never fully recognised during his lifetime because much of his work was covered by the Official Secrets Act.[14]
In 1952, Turing was prosecuted for homosexual acts. He accepted hormone treatment, a procedure commonly referred to as chemical castration, as an alternative to prison. Turing died on 7 June 1954, aged 41, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death as suicide, but the evidence is also consistent with accidental poisoning.[15] Following a campaign in 2009, British prime minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology for "the appalling way [Turing] was treated". Queen Elizabeth II granted a pardon in 2013. The term "Alan Turing law" is used informally to refer to a 2017 law in the UK that retroactively pardoned men cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts.[16]
Turing left an extensive legacy in mathematics and computing which today is recognised more widely, with statues and many things named after him, including an annual award for computing innovation. His portrait appears on the Bank of England £50 note, first released on 23 June 2021 to coincide with his birthday. The audience vote in a, 2019 BBC series, named Turing the greatest person of the 20th century.
Providing a blueprint for the electronic digital computer. The fact remains that everyone who taps at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine.
Update 13 February 2015Official war historian Harry Hinsley estimated that this work shortened the war in Europe by more than two years but added the caveat that this did not account for the use of the atomic bomb and other eventualities. Hinsley, Harry (1996) [1993], The Influence of ULTRA in the Second World War, Keith Lockstone's home page, archived from the original on 15 October 2022, retrieved 26 August 2024 Transcript of a lecture given on Tuesday 19 October 1993 at Cambridge University
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