Alan Mathison Turing, pioneer of the British computer development, was born as a second and last son of Julius Mathison Turing and Ethel Sara Stoney on June 23rd 1912. 25 Years later, as writer of the famous "On computable numbers with an application to the Entscheidingsproblem", which triggered of the development of computer technology, he would draw the blueprint for modern technology by positioning the "Turing Machine". Born in a nursing home in Paddington, London, Alan Turing had a harsh childhood, raised in various homes in England while his parents lived in Madras, India.
Alan's father, Julius Mathison Turing when serving in the Madras
Residency, India.
The first scientific interests he showed were the chemistry experiments he did as a youngster, but at that time nothing indicated a more than average capacity. In fact, it endangered his admission to Public School, but he was finally admitted to Sherbourne School. Here, in 1928, he found friendship with another talented boy, Christopher Morcom, a friendship that inspired him to developed his scientific interests. The sudden death of Morcom in 1930 was a major tragedy in Turing's young life. The generalized question of how a human mind was embodied in matter, and whether this physical status could be altered by death enlarged his interests in physics. In 1931 he entered King's College, Cambridge, where he found the atmosphere needed to developed his psychological and scientific personality. In fact, the influence of John von Neumann's latest work on the basis of quantum mechanics drove him to a less emotional, more scientific approach. At the same time the acceptance of his homosexual life gave him a stability he had lacked for many years. He felt at home finally. In 1934 he got a Fellowship of King's College and in 1936 a Smith's Prize for work on Probability theory and he seemed on track for a certain traditional career, but like always in his life, Alan Turing set for a different direction.
In 1935 one of the main issues still open in theoretical mathematics was the question of Decidebility, also called the Entscheidungsproblem, brought forward by Hilbert. Could there be a basic process which would decide all mathematical processes? In 1936 Turing presented the answer to that question in his famous paper: On Computable numbers with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem, and the answer was simple: there was no such procedure. Unfortunately for Turing, in America Alonzo Church came independently to the same conclusion, and therefore Turing had to refer to Church's work in his paper. This meant that the credit for his work went partially to Church. Although the approach to the problem was totally different, working on a practical model rather than a pure internal mathematical issue, Turing did not get the recognition he deserved. In fact he has provided us in that early stage with a blueprint for what a true-life-machine could effectuate. He saw the outlines of a computer with all basic ingredients we are so familiar with. He combined hypothetical theory with practical physics. In his view there was no single decisive algorithm, but an infinite number of possible algorithms, or Turing Machines, each with its own "definite method" and guided by its own set of instructions. By combining all those sets of instruction the Universal Turing Machine would emerge. Its hard not to see the modern computer as the Universal Turing Machine. Being a practical man, Turing worked on a cipher machine based on electromagnetic relays (see also Zuse's bio!), as a graduate student in Princeton, home of Alonzo Church. In 1938 Turing refused an offer by von Neumann in Princeton to stay and work on a temporarily basis and came back to England, Cambridge. Here he joined Wittgenstein's classes on philosophy of mathematics, did practical work on a machine to calculate the Riemann Zeta function and worked in secret for the British cryptoanalytic department, the Government Code and Cipher School. On the outbreak of war he joined the crypto analytical staff of Bletchley Park full time. Bletchley Park, nowadays the most outstanding British Museum on computer History, served as the British center for breaking the codes of the German Geheimfernschreiber, in particular the Enigma and the Fish. The first breakthrough in deciphering German codes had come from Polish mathematicians in 1939, who had worked on the German codes for quite a time. They had proposed a kind of deciphering machine, called La Bomba, with some limited capacities. Turing saw the possibility of such a device and its potential seen from the angle of a Universal Turing Machine. Asa result the Turing-Welchman was developed which worked quite well, although the more complex Enigma codes were regarded as unbreakable. Solved earlier, regular decryption worked from mid 1941 on in "Hut 8", Turings section for deciphering Naval and especially U-boat messages. On February 1st 1942 it was suddenly impossible to break the Atlantic U-boat Enigma code. This was disastrous for the Allied warfare. Turing crossed the Atlantic in November 1942 not only to join efforts in breaking the German codes, but also to find a way to electronically encipher speech between Roosevelt and Churchill. By the time Turing came back the problems with the Enigma had been solved, and he was appointed an all purpose consultant at Bletchley Park. As one of the main influential persons he saw the success of Colossus machines that were built there and broke the German codes. At the same time he produced the speech secrecy system with the help of Donald Baily, at Hanslope, close to Bletchley Park. At this stage he planned the production of the digital computer. He was going to build a "Brain". In 1945 the EDVAC was introduced in America, built by a team under Von Neumann, but based on the work of pioneer Atanasoff and his assistant Berry, the ABC, or Atanasoff-Berry Computer. England was eager to produce its own machine and a team was formed under J. Womersley, not Turing. Womersley adopted Turing's ideas and organized official approval for the project in 1946. The Automatic Computing Machine, or ACE, had been conceived. In 1947 Turing's Abbreviated Code Instructions Abbreviated Code Instructions marked the beginning of Programming Languages.
Turing in Manchester Not being in a place where he was able to implement his original concepts about developing computer hardware or software, Turing solely produced specific code for the Manchester Project. At the same time he combined his vast knowledge of computer technology with his visionary imagination in his 1950 paper: Computing Machinery and Intelligence, demonstrating again that he was way ahead of his time. In July 1951 he was elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society, a late recognition of the vast influence he had had on computing development. In November Turing published his paper On the Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis. Again it would take long before the true dimension of his work would be understood, but this time he was not to see it. Alan Turing was arrested for having a sexual relation with a young man and came to trial on March 31 1952. Not that he had concealed his homosexuality at any time and not that it had mattered at any time but apparently it did at that moment. He was given the choice to accept oestrogen injections to neutralize his libido. At the same time his security clearance was lifted, thus excluding him from any vital work for society. Apparently Turing, main originator of British computing was no longer of use. In 1952 he was considered a safety risk, which he was not when working on Bletchley Park, in charge of Allied top secret projects. On June the 8th 1954 Alan Turing was found dead, a partially eaten apple containing cyanide on the floor next to his bed. The coroners verdict was: suicide. Was it? |