Mathematician · 1912 – 1954
Alan Turing
Key Takeaways
- Turing defined the theoretical model of computation now called the Turing machine.
- His codebreaking work at Bletchley Park helped shorten World War II.
- He proposed the Turing test for machine intelligence, founding the field of AI.
- He was prosecuted for homosexuality in 1952 and died two years later.
Alan Turing was the mathematician who imagined the modern computer before it existed and whose wartime genius helped defeat Nazi Germany. His short, brilliant, and tragic life shaped the digital age we now inhabit.
The Turing machine
In his 1936 paper On Computable Numbers, Turing described an abstract device — now called a Turing machine — that could carry out any calculation reducible to a set of rules. The idea of a single universal machine able to run any program became the theoretical foundation of every computer, realizing in rigorous form the vision of Ada Lovelace.
Breaking Enigma
During World War II Turing worked at Bletchley Park, where he designed electromechanical machines that cracked the German Enigma cipher. Historians believe this intelligence shortened the war and saved countless lives.
Machine intelligence
After the war Turing helped design some of the earliest stored-program computers and turned to the question of whether machines could think. In his 1950 paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence he proposed what is now called the Turing test, founding the field of artificial intelligence and extending the inquiries into mind and mechanism raised by René Descartes. His final research applied mathematics to biology, explaining how chemical reactions can generate the patterns of stripes and spots seen in nature.
Persecution and legacy
In 1952 Turing was convicted of “gross indecency” for a homosexual relationship and forced to undergo chemical castration. He died in 1954 from cyanide poisoning, widely believed to be suicide. Decades later his contributions were finally honored: he received an official apology from the British government in 2009 and a royal pardon in 2013, and the “Alan Turing law” pardoned others convicted under the same statute. A pioneer of the modern era, Turing is now celebrated as the founder of computer science, and the Turing Award stands as computing’s highest honor.
Influence
Turing's ideas underlie every modern computer, and his wartime codebreaking is estimated to have shortened World War II and saved many lives.
Legacy
Regarded as the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, Turing is honored by the Turing Award, computing's highest prize.
Major Works
- On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem
- Computing Machinery and Intelligence
- The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis
Controversies
- In 1952 Turing was convicted of gross indecency for homosexual acts and subjected to chemical castration; he received a royal pardon only in 2013.
Notable Quotes
“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.”
Connections
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Alan Turing?
Alan Turing (1912–1954) was an English mathematician who founded computer science, helped break the Enigma code in World War II, and pioneered artificial intelligence.
What is the Turing test?
It is a test in which a machine is judged intelligent if a human interrogator cannot reliably tell its responses from those of a real person.
Citations & Sources
People Like Alan
Ada Lovelace
84Ada Lovelace was an English mathematician widely regarded as the first computer programmer, who saw that Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine could go beyond calculation to manipulate symbols of any kind.
Why Lovelace anticipated programmable computing a century before Turing gave it a rigorous theoretical foundation.
Charles Darwin
96Charles Darwin was an English naturalist whose theory of evolution by natural selection became the unifying foundation of modern biology and transformed humanity's understanding of life.
Why Turing's later work on morphogenesis explored the mathematical patterns behind Darwinian biological form.
Albert Einstein
99Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics, and won the 1921 Nobel Prize.
Why Like Einstein, Turing reshaped a whole field of science with a few foundational ideas.
René Descartes
92René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician and scientist, the "father of modern philosophy", famous for "I think, therefore I am" and for founding analytic geometry.
Why Turing's question of whether machines can think extended Descartes's inquiries into mind and mechanism.
James Clerk Maxwell
92James Clerk Maxwell was a Scottish physicist whose equations unified electricity, magnetism and light into a single electromagnetic theory, one of the greatest achievements in the history of physics.
Why Also a mathematician · Worked in mathematics
Al-Khwarizmi
89Al-Khwarizmi was a Persian mathematician and scholar of the Islamic Golden Age, the "father of algebra", whose name gave us the word "algorithm".
Why Also a mathematician · Worked in mathematics