Alan Turing

English computer scientist (1912–1954)

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Lived 1912–1954, aged 42United Kingdom

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Wikipedia
164 languages
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Global rank
#181
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Era
1912–1954
Aged 42
Known for
The Man Who Cracked th…
2014

Summary

Updated 2026-08-30

He gave the world a working definition of what a computer could be before computers existed, then helped break the ciphers that turned the Battle of the Atlantic — and was prosecuted for being gay two years before cyanide killed him at 41.

Biography

About

Born in London in 1912, Turing graduated from King's College, Cambridge, and earned his doctorate from Princeton in 1938. During World War II he led Hut 8 at Bletchley Park, devising techniques that cracked the Enigma machine and enabled the Allies to defeat the Axis powers in the Atlantic. After the war he designed the Automatic Computing Engine at the National Physical Laboratory, then joined the University of Manchester in 1948, where he worked on early computers and turned to mathematical biology — writing on morphogenesis and predicting oscillating chemical reactions later observed in the…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Alan Turing

Alan Turing

said1954

Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.

— Epigram to Robin Gandy (1954); reprinted in Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: the Enigma (Vintage edition 1992), p. 513.

Alan Turing

said1954

The Exclusion Principle is laid down purely for the benefit of the electrons themselves, who might be corrupted (and become dragons or demons) if allowed to associate too freely.

— Epigram to Robin Gandy (1954).

Alan Turing

said1951

Let us now assume, for the sake of argument, that these machines are a genuine possibility, and look at the consequences of constructing them.

— "Intelligent Machinery, A Heretical Theory" (1951), from a BBC radio discussion programme, The ’51 Society.

Alan Turing

said11 Jun 1949

This is only a foretaste of what is to come, and only the shadow of what is going to be. We have to have some experience with the machine before we really know its capabilities.

— 'The Mechanical Brain. Answer Found to 300 Year Old Problem' The Times newspaper, 11 June 1949 page 4 column 5.

Alan Turing

said1948