Codebreaker

“A man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline, is in effect a universal machine.”  - Alan Turing

Alan Turing was “a British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, giving a formalization of the concepts of “algorithm” and “computation” with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence.”


During World War II, Turing worked at Bletchley Park where he devised the method of the bombe, an electromechanical machine that decrypted Germany’s “Enigma” cipher. With Enigma broken, Allied forces knew the position of the enemy and could maneuver strategically. After the war, Turing designed Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) which was the first relatively complete specification of an store program computer. In 1949, Turing went to Manchester University where he assisted in developing the Manchester computers and got deeply involved in mathematical biology. Turing is regarded as a founding father of modern cognitive science and a leading early exponent of the hypothesis that the human brain is in large part a digital computing machine.

Turing was also a victim of prejudice. In 1952, Turing was arrested and tried for homosexuality which was a criminal crime. He avoided prison by entering a hormone treatment program. Shortly after, he took his life.

With the intention of stepping into someone’s shoes...I encourage you to check out the Masterpiece Theatre movie “Breaking the Code” available on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S23yie-779k) or look for a local viewing of the movie “CodeBreaker” (http://turingfilm.com).

Visualize the lives he saved, but also imagine the work he would have continued had he been accepted for who he was.

*Wikipedia http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing