Alan Turing

By David Garcia Castro TY2

Alan Mathison Turing was a British

computer scientist, mathematician, cryptanalyst

and ultra distance runner.

He was highly influential for the development of

computer science and for providing formalisation

for concepts algorithm and computation with the

Turing machine, considered one of the first

computers of the history.

General information

Early life

Turing was born in Paddington, London. Turing’s

father had a Scottish ancestry. His mother had an

Irish ancestry from County Tipperary and County

Longford.

At a very early life he showed

signs of being a genius. In

1926, at the age of 13, he

went on to Sherborne School,

a well known independent

school.

Turing's natural inclination

toward mathematics and

science did not earn him

respect from some of the

teachers at Sherborne, whose

definition of education placed

more emphasis on

the classics.

Turing formed an important

friendship with fellow pupil

Christopher Morcom, who has

been described as Turing's

"first love".

University work

Turing studied as an

undergraduate in King’s College,

Cambridge, from where he gained first

class honours in mathematics.

At the young age of 22, he was elected

a fellow at King's on the strength of a

dissertation in which he proved

the central limit theorem.

During those years Turing made

the Church- Turing thesis. In

simple terms, the Church–Turing

thesis states that a function on

the natural numbers is

computable in an informal sense

(i.e., computable by a human

being using a pencil-and-paper

method, ignoring resource

limitations).

This thesis is a base on

computability theory.

During the Second World War,

Turing was a leading participant in the

breaking of German ciphers at Bletchley

Park. The historian and wartime code

breaker As Briggs has said, "You needed

exceptional talent, you needed genius at

Bletchley and Turing's was that genius.“

He created a cryptanalysis device known

as the bombe that broke the Nazi code of

Enigma.

Cryptanalysis

He concentrated

on cryptanalysis of

the Enigma.

War Time

Turing had something

of a reputation for eccentricity at

Bletchley Park. He was known to

his colleagues as 'Prof' and his

treatise on Enigma was known as

'The Prof's Book'.

In 1945, Turing was awarded

the OBE by King George VI for

his wartime services, but his work

remained secret for many years

Marathon runner

While working at Bletchley, Turing, who was a

talented long-distance runner, occasionally ran

the 40 miles (64 km) to London when he was

needed for high-level meetings, and he was

capable of world-class marathon standards.

Turing tried out for the 1948 British Olympic

team, hampered by an injury.

Conviction for indecency

In January 1952, Turing, then

39, started a relationship with Arnold

Murray, a 19-year-old unemployed

man.

Homosexual acts were criminal

offences in the United Kingdom at that

time, and both men were charged with

gross indecency under Section 11 of

the Criminal Law Amendment Act

1885.

He accepted the

option of treatment via

injections of stilboestrol, a

synthetic oestrogen; this

treatment was continued

for the course of one year.

The treatment rendered

Turing impotent and

caused gynaecomastia, ful

filling in the literal sense

Turing's prediction that

"no doubt I shall emerge

from it all a different man,

but quite who I've not

found out". Murray was

given a conditional

discharge.

Death

On 8 June 1954, Turing's

housekeeper found him dead. He

had died the previous day. A post-

mortem examination established

that the cause of death was cyanide

poisoning. When his body was

discovered, an apple lay half-eaten

beside his bed, and although the

apple was not tested for cyanide, it

was speculated that this was the

means by which a fatal dose was

consumed. An inquest determined

that he had committed suicide

Tributes

The historical drama The Imitation Game,

directed by Morten Tylm and starring Benedict

Cumberbatch as Turing and Keira Knightley as Joan

Clarke, was released in the UK on 14 November 2014

and released theatrically in the US on 28 November

2014.

The Imitation Game

has been nominated to 8

Academy Awards.