Alan Turing

English computer scientist (1912-1954) · United Kingdom · Academics · Died at 41

Alan Turing is read about 11,938 times a day, in 164 languages.

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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.

Scientists Academic Mathematics Psychology AI United Kingdom Europe 20th Century

A life in dates

1954Died7 June 1954“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.”In their wordsEpigram to Robin Gandy (1954).Read the whole statement

1951“Let us now assume, for the sake of argument, that these machines are a genuine possibility, and look at the consequences of constructing them.”In their words"Intelligent Machinery, A Heretical Theory" (1951), from a BBC radio discussion programme, The ’51 Society.Read the whole statement

Fellow of the Royal SocietyAward1949“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.”In their words11 June 1949'The Mechanical Brain. Answer Found to 300 Year Old Problem' The Times newspaper, 11 June 1949 page 4 column 5.Read the whole statement

1946“Instruction tables will have to be made up by mathematicians with computing experience and perhaps a certain puzzle-solving ability.”In their words"Proposed Electronic Calculator" (1946), a report for National Physical Laboratory, Teddington; published in A. M. Turing's ACE Report ofRead the whole statement

Officer of the Order of the British EmpireAward1938“Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity.”In their words"Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals," section 11: The purpose of ordinal logics (1938), published in Proceedings of the London MathematicalRead the whole statement

1936“The "computable" numbers may be described briefly as the real numbers whose expressions as a decimal are calculable by finite means.”In their wordsProceedings of the London Mathematical Society, Vol. 2-42, Issue 1, pp. 230-265. Note: also see & .Read the whole statement

Smith's PrizeAward1912Born23 June 1912

Also in Deutsch

Photos 12

English Heritage blue plaque in Maida Vale, London marking Turing's birthplace in 1912

Turing at age 16, c. 1928 - c. 1929

Turing in the 1930s

King's College, Cambridge, where Turing was an undergraduate in 1931 and became a Fellow in 1935. The computer room is named after him.

Two cottages in the stable yard at Bletchley Park. Turing worked here in 1939 and 1940, before moving to Hut 8.

A working replica of a bombe now at The National Museum of Computing on Bletchley Park

Statue of Turing holding an Enigma machine by Stephen Kettle at Bletchley Park, commissioned by Sidney Frank, built from half a million pieces of Welsh slate[110]

In their own words 10

Alan Turing

10 statements, newest first

Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.
1954, Epigram to Robin Gandy (1954); reprinted in Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: the Enigma (Vintage edition 1992), p. 513., Own words
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.
1954, Epigram to Robin Gandy (1954)., Own words
Let us now assume, for the sake of argument, that these machines are a genuine possibility, and look at the consequences of constructing them.
1951, "Intelligent Machinery, A Heretical Theory" (1951), from a BBC radio discussion programme, The ’51 Society., Own words

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Awards

Fellow of the Royal Society1951

Officer of the Order of the British Empire1946

Smith's Prize1936

Family

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Alan Turing

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About this person

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 1960s. In 1952 he was prosecuted for homosexual acts and accepted hormone treatment as an alternative to prison. He died from cyanide poisoning on 7 June 1954, aged 41; an inquest ruled suicide, though accidental poisoning remains consistent with the evidence. Gordon Brown apologized in 2009, the Queen pardoned him in 2013, and his face now appears on the £50 note.

Country

United Kingdom

Academics from the United Kingdom 6

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