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Alan Mathison Turing (1912 - 1954)
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 Alan
Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges, Douglas
Hofstadter (Preface)
Alan Turing died in
1954, but the themes of his life epitomize the turn of the
millennium. A pure mathematician from a tradition that prided
itself on its impracticality, Turing laid the foundations for
modern computer science, writes Andrew Hodges:
Alan had proved that there was no
"miraculous machine" that could solve all mathematical
problems, but in the process he had discovered something almost
equally miraculous, the idea of a universal machine that could
take over the work of any machine.
During World War II, Turing was the intellectual
star of Bletchley Park, the secret British cryptography unit. His
work cracking the German's Enigma machine code was, in many ways,
the first triumph of computer science. And Turing died because his
identity as a homosexual was incompatible with cold-war ideas of
security, implemented with machines and remorseless logic:
"It was his own invention, and it killed the goose that laid
the golden eggs."
Andrew Hodges's remarkable insight weaves
Turing's mathematical and computer work with his personal life to
produce one of the best biographies of our time, and the basis of
the Derek Jacobi movie Breaking
the Code. Hodges has the mathematical knowledge to explain
the intellectual significance of Turing's work, while never losing
sight of the human and social picture:
In this sense his life belied his work, for it
could not be contained by the discrete state machine. At every
stage his life raised questions about the connection (or lack of
it) between the mind and the body, thought and action,
intelligence and operations, science and society, the individual
and history.
And Hodges admits what all biographers know, but
few admit, about their subjects: "his inner code remains
unbroken." Alan Turing is still an enigma. --Mary Ellen
Curtin
Alan Turing (1912 - 1954)
was a British mathematician who made history: His breaking of the
German U-boat Enigma cipher in World War II ensured
Allied-American control of the Atlantic. But Turing's vision went
far beyond the desperate wartime struggle. Already in the 1930s he
had defined the concept of the universal machine, which underpins
the computer revolution. In 1945 he was a pioneer of electronic
computer design. But Turing's true goal was the scientific
understanding of the mind, brought out in the drama and wit of the
famous "Turing test" for machine intelligence, and his
prophecy for the twenty-first century.
Drawn into the cockpit of world events and the
forefront of technological innovation, Alan Turing was also an
innocent and unpretentious gay man trying to live in a society
that criminalized him. In 1952, he revealed his homosexuality and
was forced to participate in a humiliating treatment program, and
was ever after regarded as a security risk. His suicide in 1954
remains one of the many enigmas in an astonishing life story.
"As vivid a picture as one could hope for a most complex and
intriguing man," says Douglas Hofstadter, author of Gdel,
Escher, Bach. Both a compelling narrative and a work of
scholarship, Alan Turing: The Enigma is the definitive biography
of one of the greatest minds of the modern world.
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By Andrew Hodges
Alan Turing Home Page. Gateway to a large website maintained by Andrew Hodges, biographer of Alan Turing (1912-1954).
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By Andrew Hodges
Excerpt:
Alan Mathison Turing was born on 23 June 1912,
the second and last child (after his brother John) of Julius
Mathison and Ethel Sara Turing. The unusual name of Turing placed
him in a distinctive family tree of English gentry, far from rich
but determinedly upper-middle-class in the peculiar sense of the
English class system. His father Julius had entered the Indian
Civil Service, serving in the Madras Presidency, and had there met
and married Ethel Sara Stoney. She was the daughter of the chief
engineer of the Madras railways, who came from an Anglo-Irish
family of somewhat similar social status. Although conceived in
British India, most likely in the town of Chatrapur, Alan Turing
was born in a nursing home in Paddington, London...
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By Tom Sullivan
Excerpt:
Throughout his professional career, Turing was a
"known homosexual". He was put under surveillance at
Manchester University because it was believed that his
homosexuality made him a security risk. In the early half of the
1950's, McCarthyism (named for Sen. Joseph McCarthy - R.
Wisconsin) was in full bloom in America. The loyalties of
government officials and careers were ruined in a political
campaign that would mark one of the ugliest chapters in the
nation's history. The witch hunts crossed national boundaries.
America pressured the British government to rid their intelligence
establishment of security risks - including homosexuals...
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By John M. Kowalik
Excerpt:
Alan Mathison Turing was one of the great
pioneers of the computer field. He inspired the now common terms
of "The Turing Machine" and "Turing's Test."
As a mathematician he applied the concept of the algorithm to
digital computers. His research into the relationships between
machines and nature created the field of artificial intelligence.
His intelligence and foresight made him one of the first to step
into the information age...
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