Alan Mathison Turing (1912 – 1954)
• British mathematician, logician, and
cryptographer,
• One of the fathers of modern computer
science.
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Some Contributions
• Provided an influential formalization of the concept of algorithm
and computation: the Turing machine. Also formulated the
Church-Turing thesis stating that any practical computing model
has either the equivalent or a subset of the capabilities of a Turing
machine.
• During World War II he worked on breaking German ciphers,
particularly the Enigma machine.
• He designed one of the earliest
electronic programmable digital
computers at the National
Physical Laboratory.
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Death
• Prosecution for his
homosexuality crippled his
career. He was charged with
“gross indecency and sexual
perversion”.
• He unapologetically offered no
defense, and was convicted.
• He was given a choice between
incarceration and estrogen
hormonal treatment. He chose
the latter.
• In 1954, he died of cyanide
poisoning. His death was ruled
a suicide.
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Recognition
• A statue of Turing was unveiled in Manchester on June
23, 2001.
• To mark the 50th anniversary of his untimely death, a
memorial plaque was unveiled at his former residence
'Hollymeade' in Wilmslow on June 7, 2004.
• The Turing Award is given by the Association for
Computing Machinery to a person for technical
contributions to the computing community. It is widely
considered to be the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in
the computing world.
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