Alan Turing

Alan Mathison Turing (London, 23 June 1912 – Wilmslow, Cheshire, 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician and computer scientist. He is known as the father of computer science. He was born in Maida Vale, London.Newman M.H.A. 1955. Alan Mathison Turing. 1912–1954. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 1: 253.  

 Early life 
Turing was born in Maida Vale, London. His father came from a Scottish merchant family. His mother, Ethel Sara Stoney, was the daughter of an engineer from Ireland. Turing was very good at math when he was young.

 Education 
He went to school at St. Michael’s in St Leonards-on-Sea. Later, he studied at Cambridge University and Princeton University.

 Career 
In 1936, Turing wrote about a theoretical machine called the Turing machine. This idea became important in the development of computers. He also created the idea of a computer program.

During World War II, Turing worked at Bletchley Park. He helped break secret German messages made by the Enigma machine. This helped the Allies win the war and may have saved millions of lives.

He worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), using cryptanalysis to break Nazi codes. Later, he helped design the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE), one of the first stored-program computers. He presented the design in 1946.Copeland, B. Jack 2006. Colossus: The secrets of Bletchley Park's code-breaking computers. Oxford University Press. p108 

Turing was also interested in artificial intelligence. He proposed the Turing test to check if a machine can "think".Harnad, Stevan 2008.  The Annotation game: Turing (1950) on Computing, machinery and intelligence . In: Epstein, Robert & Peters, Grace (eds) Parsing the Turing Test: philosophical and methodological issues in the quest for the thinking computer. Springer

 Private life 
Turing was homosexual. In 1952, he admitted to having sex with a man. At that time, being gay was illegal in the UK. He was convicted and had to choose between prison or taking hormones to reduce his sex drive. He chose the medicine. This caused him health problems like impotence and breast growth.

 Death 
In 1954, Turing died from cyanide poisoning. Some say he ate a poisoned apple, but the apple was never tested.Hodges, Andrew 1983. Alan Turing: the enigma. London: Burnett Books, p488.  It is believed he died by suicide.

 Legacy 
In 2009, a petition asked the UK Government to say sorry for how Turing was treated. Prime Minister Gordon Brown later gave an apology and called Turing's treatment "appalling".

In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II gave him a royal pardon.

The “Turing Law” was later passed to pardon other men who were punished under old anti-gay laws.

 References 

 Other websites 
Jack Copeland 2012. Alan Turing: The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives'. BBC News / Technology 

Category:English computer scientists
Category:English LGBT people
Category:English mathematicians
Category:Gay men
Category:LGBT scientists
Category:Scientists from London
Category:Suicides by poison
Category:Suicides in the United Kingdom
Category:1912 births
Category:1954 deaths
Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire