He was a brilliant British mathematician who, when an Enigma code book was taken from a U-Boat captain by the British sailors who had sunk the vessel, created the machine that could decode any message intercepted. ... So Alan Turing was pivotal to the Allies' success in WWII. Then after the war, he was instrumental in developing the early computers that ultimately developed into the wonder machines we use today. He truly was a genius. And what was his reward or recognition? ...Turing was gay, and he was prosecuted for this illegal activity. ... Before he turned 42, in 1954, he was dead of cyanide poisoning. It was ruled as a suicide, but his family believed he was murdered.
A couple of years ago, then Prime Minister Gordon Brown, issued an apology for the way Turing was treated.
from Brown's speech:
"The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely."
More. Much, Much More:
THE ALAN TURING HOME PAGE.
ALAN TURING DOT NET: The Turing Archive for
the history of computers.
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