Alan Turing was a British mathematician who made seminal contributions to computer science but was not widely known during his lifetime. He developed concepts fundamental to modern computing and played a pivotal role in cracking German codes during World War II, shortening the war by estimates of 2-4 years. However, in 1952 he was prosecuted for his homosexuality, which was illegal at the time, and accepted chemical castration as an alternative to prison. He died in 1954 at the age of 42 from cyanide poisoning.

1. ALAN TURING (1912-1954)

2. Alan Turing
was not
a well
known figure
during
his
lifetime

4. He was born in London
and was educated
at a top private school.
In 1931 he entered
the University of Cambridge
to study mathematics.
He worked on
the “probability theory”
and took
the Mathematics degree
with distinction

6. The
central concept of
the
modern computer
was based
on
Turing’s paper

7. After two years at Princeton, developing ideas about secret
ciphers,
he returned to Britain and joined the government’s code-
breaking department

8. During
the Second World War,
Turing
worked for
the Government Code and
Cypher School
at Bletchley Park,
Britain's codebreaking
organization

9. and developed a new machine
(the ‘Bombe’)
capable of breaking “Enigma” messages

10. He played a pivotal
role
in cracking
intercepted
coded messages
that enabled the
Allies
to defeat the Nazis
in many
crucial engagements

11. It
has been estimated
that
this work
shortened
the war
in Europe
by as many as
two to four years

12. In March 1946 Turing produced a detailed design for what was called the
Automatic Computing Engine (ACE)
This was a digital computer in the modern sense,
storing programs in its memory

13. In 1952
he was prosecuted
for homosexual acts,
when such behavior was still
a criminal act in the UK.
He was forced to accept
treatment
with
estrogen injections (chemical
castration)
as an alternative to prison

14. Alan Turing died in 1954, 16 days before
his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning

15. On September 10, 2009
the British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown
made an official
public statement
on behalf of
the British government,
posthumously apologized
to Turing for prosecuting
him
as a homosexual