Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing (London, 23 June 1912 – Wilmslow, Cheshire, 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician and computer scientist, born in Maida Vale, London.[1]
He was one of the first people to work with computers. He was the first person to think of using a computer to do things that were too hard for a person to do. He told people that computers could run programs and created the Turing machine in 1936. The machine was imaginary, but it ran programs.
Turing was interested in artificial intelligence. He proposed the Turing test, to say when a machine could be called "intelligent". A computer could be said to "think" if a human interrogator could not tell it apart, through conversation, from a human being.[2]
During World War II, Turing worked to break German ciphers (secret messages). Using cryptanalysis he helped to break the Enigma machine. After that, he solved other German signals.
From 1945 to 1947 Turing worked on the design of the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine) at the National Physical Laboratory. He presented a paper on 19 February 1946, which was the first detailed design of a stored-program computer.[3] Although ACE was a feasible design, the secrecy surrounding the wartime work at Bletchley Park led to delays in starting the project and he became disillusioned. In late 1947 he returned to Cambridge for a sabbatical year. While he was at Cambridge, the Pilot ACE was built in his absence. It executed its first program on 10 May 1950.
[change] Private life
Turing was a gay man. In 1952, Turing admitted having had sex with a man in England. At that time, it was a crime to take part in homosexual acts. He was convicted and forced to make a choice. He could choose between going to jail or take hormones like estrogen to lower his sex drive. He decided to chose the hormones. After his punishment, he became impotent and could not get an erection. He also grew breasts.
[change] Death
In 1954, after suffering for two years, he died after eating an apple which was poisoned with cyanide.
The treatment forced on him is now believed to be very wrong, going against medical ethics and international laws of human rights. In August 2009, a petition apologized to Turing for punishing him for being a homosexual.[4][5] The petition received thousands of signatures.[6] Prime Minister Gordon Brown acknowledged the petition, and called Turing's treatment as "appalling":[7]
Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him ... So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better.
[change] References
- ↑ Newman M.H.A. 1955. Alan Mathison Turing. 1912–1954. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 1: 253. [1]
- ↑ 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
- ↑ Copeland, B. Jack 2006. Colossus: The secrets of Bletchley Park's code-breaking computers. Oxford University Press. p108 ISBN 978-0-19-284055-4
- ↑ Thousands call for Turing apology. BBC News. 31 August 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8226509.stm. Retrieved 31 August 2009.
- ↑ Petition seeks apology for Enigma code-breaker Turing. CNN. 01 September 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/09/01/alan.turing.petition/index.html. Retrieved 1 September 2009.
- ↑ The petition was only open to UK citizens.
- ↑ "PM's apology to codebreaker Alan Turing: we were inhumane". The Guardian. 11 September 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/11/pm-apology-to-alan-turing.
