Who Was Alan Turing, And Why Is He Still Important?
...the 23rd June 2012, [was] the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing. Who was Alan Turing? Well, he was one of the most amazing minds of the 20th Century. He was a mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. His list of achievements are astounding:
- At the young age of 22, he was elected a fellow at King’s College, Cambridge.
- During WWII, he worked at Bletchley Park, Britain’s codebreaking centre, where he devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including creating an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine.
- In the latter part of the war, he moved to work for the Secret Service’s Radio Security Service where he worked on some early voice encryption devices.
- In 1946 he delivered a paper that described the first detailed design of a stored-program computer, the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine).
- In the early 1950s, he switched his focus to mathematical biology, where he looked into the existence of Fibonacci numbers in plant structures.
- And he is most famously known for developing the Turing Test, which is a test designed to test the validity of artificial intelligence where a judge engages in conversation with a computer. If the judge cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test and is considered “intelligent”.
Sadly, despite how important those achievements are, they’re not the only reason why he is still so important. No, it is the tragic events at the end of his life and the manner of his death that make this man so important. He is a tragic example of how prejudice and inequality can ruin the life of a great person.
Alan Turing
Alan Turing was homosexual. An English homosexual when homosexuality was still illegal in Britain. In 1952 he was charged and convicted of with gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885. Given the choice between imprisonment or probation, he chose probation on the condition he undertook chemical castration via oestrogen hormone injections. Yes, you read that right. He chose to be chemically castrated, all because his sexuality was considered abnormal and illegal.
Turing’s conviction led to the removal of his security clearance, and barred him from continuing with his cryptographic consultancy for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). What a ridiculous decision. One of the greatest minds of the 20th Century was prevented from working in his chosen field simply because of his sexuality. Imagine being told you couldn’t work in your career anymore because of your sexuality. On the 7th June 1954, Alan Turing took his own life by eating a cyanide laced apple. He was only 41. One of the greatest minds of the 20th Century lost, all because the society he lived in considered his sexuality to be abnormal and immoral.
Think about all the great work left unfinished. Imagine all the things he may have contributed to in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s during the early days of computer technology. All lost because of state-based prejudice and discrimination. This is why any form of discrimination is wrong. This is why we need to nurture and encourage the politics of inclusion and equality, and stamp out prejudice and bigotry. Today, as you read this post on your laptop, smart-phone or tablet, think about the man who helped kick-off the computer revolution. Think about his life, his contributions to mathematics and computer science, and the sad end to his life. This is why we all must stand up against those who preach exclusion and bigotry.
(On 10 September 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for the way in which Turing was treated after the war.)
Images by Joseph Birr-Pixton and http://www.ieee.org
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