ALAN TURING
1912-1928
If you’ve ever played a game on a smartphone or done your homework on a computer, you have Alan Turing to thank! Born in London in 1912, Alan was an incredibly smart kid. In fact, his teachers thought he was a genius! The trouble was that his boarding school in Dorset mostly taught classics (ancient languages and literature) and Alan found them really dull. Instead, he kept to himself and spent his time solving complex chess problems and learning advanced science all on his own.
1928-1938
At age 16, Alan had a very close friendship with a fellow pupil called Christopher, who inspired Alan to come out of his shell and work harder at school. When Christopher tragically died a couple of years later, Alan was determined to honour his memory by devoting himself to study. So, in 1931, he headed to King’s College, University of Cambridge, to study maths, and then to Princeton University in the USA in 1936 to complete a Ph.D. During this time, he also took up long-distance running – a hobby that almost led to him competing for Britain in the 1948 Olympics. Wow
1938
At Princeton Alan developed one of his most famous ideas – a universal computing machine (later called a Turing machine) that would be able to decode and perform any set of instructions. Although during his lifetime the machine remained just a theory and was never actually built, his ideas laid the groundwork for today’s modern computing, transforming the world we live in!
1939-1945
World War II broke out in 1939 and Alan joined the British government’s top-secret code-breaking department at Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes. The Nazis had been using a system of scrambled messages called the Enigma Code to communicate military information. So, Alan and fellow mathematician Gordon Welchman invented an incredible new machine called the Bombe. In total 211 of these machines were made, and they were vital in helping codebreakers crack the Enigma code, giving Britain and its allies a huge advantage. By 1945 they had won the war. It’s estimated that the codebreakers’ efforts saved many thousands of lives! 000
1946-1950
Awarded an OBE by King George VI for his services to the country, Alan kept very busy after the war. In 1946 he produced a design for the first electronic computer the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE). Then, in 1950 he published a paper called Computing Machinery and Intelligence. In it, he asked the question of whether computers would one day be able to think, and he designed a method for judging artificial intelligence. Alan referred to it as the ‘imitation game’ (later called the ‘Turing test’) and it became hugely important to computer science.
1952-1954
During Alan’s lifetime, it was illegal to be gay in the UK, and in 1952 he was convicted for having a relationship with a man. Rather than go to prison for his ‘crimes, Alan agreed to have a medical treatment designed to take away his romantic desires. He also lost his job because of his criminal record. As a result, Alan became depressed and in 1954 took his own life. Thankfully, this homophobic law was abolished in 1967, and Alan received a Royal Pardon in 2013. Now, to honour this remarkable man, who helped speed up the end of the war and whose work led to the technology we all use today, Alan is shown on the new £50 note. Thanks, Alan!
- What did Alan learn at boarding school in Dorset and what did he think of it?
- What idea did Alan develop while at Princeton in 1938?
- What were the scrambled messages that the Nazis used in WWII known as?
- What was the name of the person who helped Alan develop a machine to crack the Nazi code?
- What award was given to Alan by George VI and why?
- In 1950 Alan published a paper called Computing Machinery and Intelligence, and in the paper what did he ask about computers?
- The preceding answer refers to the “imitation game”, but what is it now known as?
- Why was Alan convicted in 1952?
- What happened in 2013?
- Where is an image now shown of Alan Turing and why?