What did Alan Turing do in WW2?
During the Second World War, Turing was a leading participant in the breaking of German ciphers at Bletchley Park. The historian and wartime codebreaker Asa Briggs has said, "You needed exceptional talent, you needed genius at Bletchley and Turing's was that genius."
What was Alan Turing's'fearless approach to problems'praised?
^ "Alan Turing's 'fearless approach to problems and intellectual curiosity' praised". Dunfermline Press. ^ "The Alan Turing Law finally pardons thousands of unfairly convicted gay and bisexual men".
How did Alan Turing get impotent?
During the course of the investigation Turing admitted that he'd had a sexual relationship with the perpetrator, a 19-year-old man named Arnold Murray. Turing was arrested and convicted of gross indecency. He was given a choice: prison, or a series of injections of synthetic estrogen — chemical castration, which eventually rendered him impotent.
What did Alan Turing do in Bletchley Park?
In 1938, having been awarded a Ph.D. in mathematics, Turing returned to Cambridge and was soon working at Bletchley Park, the famous British code-breaking “factory.” When the war ended, Turing moved to Manchester where the university created a special readership in the theory of computing for him.
Why did Alan Turing receive the OBE?
During the war, Alan Turing had been one of the key members of the team decoding German Enigma messages. He took on problems no-one else would take on and succeeded. This gave vital intelligence to the Allied war effort and was specifically supported by Churchill as priority work. He was also sent to the US to assist their war efforts. Fittingly, he received the OBE in 1946 for his role during the war.
What happened to Turing in the play?
One of the pivotal moments in the play was when Turing was being quizzed by a policeman about inconsistencies in his burglary story, and admitted that he was having an affair with a man and was trying to protect him. Instantly the mood changed, as the policeman tried to draw out the details of this new and much more serious crime that Turing had confessed.
What is Turing test?
The Turing Test is still one of the best known assessments of whether a machine possesses intelligence, while Turing machines were an important part of our Theory of Computation subject. There is also the Turing Award, named in his honour and widely considered the Nobel Prize of Computer Science.
How did Turing cope with his grief?
The event caused Turing great sorrow. He coped with his grief by working that much harder on the topics of science and mathematics that he had shared with Morcom. In a letter to Morcom's mother, Frances Isobel Morcom (née Swan), Turing wrote:
How did Alan Turing die?
On 8 June 1954, at his house at 43 Adlington Road, Wilmslow, Turing's housekeeper found him dead. He had died the previous day at the age of 41. Cyanide poisoning was established as the cause of death. 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 Turing had consumed a fatal dose. An inquest determined that he had committed suicide. Andrew Hodges and another biographer, David Leavitt, have both speculated that Turing was re-enacting a scene from the Walt Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), his favourite fairy tale. Both men noted that (in Leavitt's words) he took "an especially keen pleasure in the scene where the Wicked Queen immerses her apple in the poisonous brew". Turing's remains were cremated at Woking Crematorium on 12 June 1954, and his ashes were scattered in the gardens of the crematorium, just as his father's had been.
Why did Turing solve the Enigma problem?
Turing decided to tackle the particularly difficult problem of German naval Enigma "because no one else was doing anything about it and I could have it to myself". In December 1939, Turing solved the essential part of the naval indicator system, which was more complex than the indicator systems used by the other services.
What was Turing's machine called?
Within weeks of arriving at Bletchley Park, Turing had specified an electromechanical machine called the bombe, which could break Enigma more effectively than the Polish bomba kryptologiczna, from which its name was derived. The bombe , with an enhancement suggested by mathematician Gordon Welchman, became one of the primary tools, and the major automated one, used to attack Enigma-enciphered messages.
Why did Turing have a depressed mood?
It has been suggested that Turing's belief in fortune-telling may have caused his depressed mood. As a youth, Turing had been told by a fortune-teller that he would be a genius. In mid-May 1954, shortly before his death, Turing again decided to consult a fortune-teller during a day-trip to St Annes-on-Sea with the Greenbaum family. According to the Greenbaums' daughter, Barbara:
Why was Turing arrested?
Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts; the Labouchere Amendment of 1885 had mandated that "gross indecency" was a criminal offence in the UK. He accepted chemical castration treatment, with DES, as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning.
What was Turing's first paper?
In 1936, Turing published his paper " On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem ". It was published in the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society journal in two parts, the first on 30 November and the second on 23 December. In this paper, Turing reformulated Kurt Gödel 's 1931 results on the limits of proof and computation, replacing Gödel's universal arithmetic-based formal language with the formal and simple hypothetical devices that became known as Turing machines. The Entscheidungsproblem (decision problem) was originally posed by German mathematician David Hilbert in 1928. Turing proved that his "universal computing machine" would be capable of performing any conceivable mathematical computation if it were representable as an algorithm. He went on to prove that there was no solution to the decision problem by first showing that the halting problem for Turing machines is undecidable: it is not possible to decide algorithmically whether a Turing machine will ever halt. This paper has been called "easily the most influential math paper in history".
What did Turing's counsel say about organotherapy?
Turing’s own counsel hoped to steer the court away from a prison sentence, and alluded to the possibility of organotherapy: “ There is treatment which could be given him. I ask you to think that the public interest would not be well served if this man is taken away from the very important work he is doing.”.
Who is Alan Turing?
Turing wrote a short story. Although only a few pages long and incomplete, it offers an intimate glimpse of its author. The central character — a scientist by the name of Alec Pryce, who works at Manchester University — is a thinly disguised Alan Turing. Pryce, like Turing himself, always wore what Turing described as “an old sports coat ...
Why was Alan Turing arrested?
In 1952, Alan Turing, patriotic codebreaker and pioneer of computer science and artificial intelligence, was arrested, tried, and punished on the basis of his homosexuality. In this adapted extract from The Turing Guide, Jack Copeland walks us through the events leading up to his arrest and trial, which sentenced him to chemical castration.
What did Murray's counsel say about Turing?
Murray’s counsel attempted to shift the blame onto Turing, saying that Turing had approached Murray. If Murray “had not met Turing he would not have indulged in that practice or stolen the £8,” the barrister argued crassly. But his tactics worked: despite a previous conviction for larceny, Murray got off with 12 months’ good behaviour.
Where did Turing pick up Murray?
Turing picked up Murray in Manchester’s Oxford Street and the two ate together. Their first time was a few days later at Turing’s house, Hollymeade, in Wilmslow. Afterwards Turing gave Murray a present of a penknife: probably the unemployed Murray would have preferred cash instead. The next time they had sex, Murray stole £8 from Turing’s pocket as ...
Did Turing go to the police station?
In the morning he led Murray to the local police station. Turing went in, but not Murray. In the course of reporting the burglary he gave the police a wrong description and this, as the newspaper reporter covering his subsequent trial wrote luridly, “proved to be his undoing.”
Who was Turing's friend?
The mathematician Max Newman, Turing’s long-time friend, was called as a character witness. “He is completely absorbed in his work, and is one of the most profound and original mathematical minds of his generation,” Newman said. It must have been good to hear these words, even on such a black day.
What items did the turings steal?
The stolen items included a shirt, some fish knives, a pair of trousers, shoes, shavers, a compass, and an open bottle of sherry.
Who plays Alan Turing in the movie?
Jack English. The Imitation Game, the new movie in which Benedict Cumberbatch plays the prodigal computer pioneer Alan Turing, opens an uncomfortable window on the still-festering swamp of British sexual behavior.
What did the computer genius try to cure?
After he beat the Nazis, the computer genius’s own country tried to “cure” him of homosexuality.
What was Turing's crime?
In 1952, Turing was found guilty on three counts of “gross indecency contrary to Section II of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885”—a law that had its first sensational effect in the trial of Oscar Wilde.
Why was Turing important in World War II?
Turing's work was crucial for the Allied victory over the Nazis in World War II. Prosecutions of homosexuals increased in England after World War II, and one of the individuals so ensnared was a mathematician. He's widely celebrated today as a mathematical genius who broke German military codes and in a very real sense contributed enormously to ...
Why did Alan Turing wear a gas mask?
But at the time, Alan Turing was just another slightly eccentric academic who wore a gas mask when he rode his bicycle because of his allergies, and if he didn't ride his bicycle would run almost everywhere else, at least in part to relieve job stress.
Why was Turing arrested?
Turing was arrested and convicted of gross indecency. He was given a choice: prison, or a series of injections of synthetic estrogen — chemical castration, which eventually rendered him impotent. Because of his conviction his security clearance was removed and he was barred from continuing his cryptography work.
Who was the man who sex with the perpetrator?
During the course of the investigation Turing admitted that he'd had a sexual relationship with the perpetrator, a 19-year-old man named Arnold Murray.
Was Alan Turing pardoned?
Said Prime Minister Gordon Brown, "Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was, under homophobic laws were treated terribly.". As computer scientist John Graham said, Turing "was a national treasure, and we hounded him to his death.". In 2013 Queen Elizabeth II issued Turing a royal pardon — quite posthumously.
Who defended aversion therapy?
Indeed, in that year, the world’s then leading psychologist, Prof Hans Eysenck, publicly defended the use of aversion therapy in a lecture hosted by St Thomas’s hospital in London. When I challenged him, I was violently ejected from the audience.
When did the Nursing Standard article "A chance to apologise" come out?
An edited version of this article appeared in Nursing Standard (UK) on 5 February 2014, under the title: A chance to apologise.
Why did Pavlov give dogs electric shocks?
Based on Pavlov’s experiments giving electric shocks to dogs to change their behaviour, the rationale was to create a mental association between homosexuality and pain or sickness – to make same-sex attraction repellent – and thereby turn gay men heterosexual.
Was Alan Turing pardoned?
The hidden homophobic shame of the NHS. The posthumous royal pardon granted to war-time code breaker and computer pioneer Alan Turing was a long overdue attempt to put right a grave injustice. Turing had been convicted of homosexuality in 1952, under the same nineteenth century ‘gross indecency’ law that sent Oscar Wilde to prison in 1895.
Was Turing convicted of homosexuality?
Turing had been convicted of homosexuality in 1952, under the same nineteenth century ‘gross indecency’ law that sent Oscar Wilde to prison in 1895. Given the option of jail or chemical castration, he chose the latter.
What did Turing experiment with?
Without excusing any of the abuse which Turing had suffered, Professor Copeland follows an explanation hinted at by Turing's mother, that Turing had been experimenting with cyanide, specifically electrolyzing solutions from it.
How did Alan Turing die?
As the Turing Centre describes, the official verdict was that Turing had died from self-administered suicide cyanide poisoning, with a half-eaten apple sitting on his bedside table presumably being the vehicle with which he had poisoned himself.
Who was the mathematician who paid tribute to Turing?
Paying tribute to Turing's contribution to "Britain's fight against the darkness of dictatorship", Brown described him as "a quite brilliant mathematician".
What is Turing famous for?
Turing is most famous for his work in helping create the "bombe" that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines. He was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 after admitting ...
Who is Alan Turing's nephew?
Alan Turing is survived by three neices – Inagh, Shuna and Janet, from his brother's first marriage – and a nephew, John Dermot Turing, from his brother's second marriage, along with their associated family members.
Who took his own life after being sentenced to chemical castration for being gay?
371. Gordon Brown issued an unequivocal apology last night on behalf of the government to Alan Turing, the second world war codebreaker who took his own life 55 years ago after being sentenced to chemical castration for being gay.
Why was Alan Turing convicted of gross indecency?
He was found guilty of gross indecency for homosexual acts avoiding prison by agreeing to a now unthinkable condition of probation: chemical castration.
Was Alan Turing a victim of DES?
Alan Turing was a DES victim. He accepted chemical castration with DES as an alternative to prison. He's just been named the Most Iconic Figure of the 20th Century. https://t.co/B8EfdVanM9. — WONDER DRUG Movie (@WonderDrugMovie) February 6, 2019.
His Work
The Play
A Crime?
- One of the pivotal moments in the play was when Turing was being quizzed by a policeman about inconsistencies in his burglary story, and admitted that he was having an affair with a man and was trying to protect him. Instantly the mood changed, as the policeman tried to draw out the details of this new and much more serious crime that Turing had confessed. Later this led to hi…
A Disgrace to The Family?
- So what was his mother’s first response when he stammeringly broke the news that he was homosexual and was to be brought to trial for it? “I’m glad your father is dead. He was so proud of you.” Even as an impartial audience member those words felt like a slap in the face (it is not for nothing that coming out as an atheist is sometimes compared with coming out as gay). Yes, it w…
The War Hero
- During the war, Alan Turing had been one of the key members of the team decoding German Enigma messages. He took on problems no-one else would take on and succeeded. This gave vital intelligence to the Allied war effort and was specifically supported by Churchill as priority work. He was also sent to the US to assist their war efforts. Fittingly, h...
The Value of A High Profile Example
- Alan Turing provided a high profile example of the problems caused by an unjust law. And that can be good for raising awareness. But the important thing is that the law wasunjust. I don’t think we want people like Alan Turing to be above the law. We don’t want them to get special treatment because they are war heroes, or because they are brilliant thinkers. Instead, we want it to be rec…
A Law Change, An Apology and A Pardon
- In 1967, English laws were amended so that actions like Turing’s were no longer considered a crime. In subsequent years, the other parts of the UK similarly amended their laws. In 2009, Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologised on behalf of the British government for Turing’s conviction. He acknowledged that the effects of the conviction could not be reversed, but said “we’re sorry, you …
The Christadelphian Response
- I spent at least my first 25 years thinking homosexuality was wrong, based on my understanding of the Bible. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with this, so it’s not surprising that when I rejected the Bible I also rejected the idea that homosexuality was wrong. But even before I accepted homosexuality I recognised how unhelpful the Christadelphian response to it was. It seemed tha…
Words Matter
- The word “homosexuality” can have negative connotations, and many style guides now encourage the use of “gay” and “lesbian”, or of umbrella terms like “LGBTI”. So far, I’ve used the word because that is what the play used, and that is what we used in Christadelphian discussion groups. But my usage also reflects the fact that I was unaware of these broader categories while I was a Christa…
Towards Greater Acceptance
- Nowadays, the LGBTI community has much greater acceptance in the UK, in Australia, and across the Western world. Not only have offences like the one Turing was charged with been struck from the books, but many of these countries now recognise civil partnerships and same-sex marriage (though in the case of Australia the process to get there was highly divisive). However, just maki…
Overview
Alan Mathison Turing OBE FRS was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing 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. H…
Early life and education
Turing was born in Maida Vale, London, while his father, Julius Mathison Turing (1873–1947), was on leave from his position with the Indian Civil Service (ICS) at Chatrapur, then in the Madras Presidency and presently in Odisha state, in India. Turing's father was the son of a clergyman, the Rev. John Robert Turing, from a Scottish family of merchants that had been based in the Netherlands and inclu…
Career and research
When Turing returned to Cambridge, he attended lectures given in 1939 by Ludwig Wittgenstein about the foundations of mathematics. The lectures have been reconstructed verbatim, including interjections from Turing and other students, from students' notes. Turing and Wittgenstein argued and disagreed, with Turing defending formalism and Wittgenstein propounding his view that m…
Personal life
In 1941, Turing proposed marriage to Hut 8 colleague Joan Clarke, a fellow mathematician and cryptanalyst, but their engagement was short-lived. After admitting his homosexuality to his fiancée, who was reportedly "unfazed" by the revelation, Turing decided that he could not go through with the marriage.
In January 1952, Turing was 39 when he started a relationship with Arnold Mur…
Legacy
Turing was appointed an officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1946. He was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1951.
Turing has been honoured in various ways in Manchester, the city where he worked towards the end of his life. In 1994, a stretch of the A6010 road (the Manchester city intermediate ring road) was named "Alan Turing Way". A bridg…
Further reading
• Turing, Alan (1950). "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" (PDF). Mind. 49 (236): 433–460. doi:10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433.
• Copeland, B. Jack (ed.). "The Mind and the Computing Machine: Alan Turing and others". The Rutherford Journal.
• Copeland, B. Jack (ed.). "Alan Turing: Father of the Modern Computer". The Rutherford Journal.
External links
• Oral history interview with Nicholas C. Metropolis, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. Metropolis was the first director of computing services at Los Alamos National Laboratory; topics include the relationship between Turing and John von Neumann
• How Alan Turing Cracked The Enigma Code Imperial War Museums