This document discusses whether Alan Turing's legacy has been neglected. It describes Turing's pioneering work in computing during World War II and his later work in artificial intelligence. While Turing receives recognition within computer science, the document argues his legacy has been neglected in broader education. Recent efforts like the 2012 Turing Year helped raise awareness, but more can be done to teach students about Turing's achievements and genius.

1. Nathan Leigh 20th April 2014
Has Alan Turing’s Legacy Been Neglected?
This essay is about Alan Turing and whether his legacy has been neglected. Alan Turing is described as
the father of modern computing.​1​
His heroics during during World War II saved countless lives​2​
and his
visionary work on artificial intelligence and mathematical biology labelled him a genius who was ahead
of the time.​3​
Alan Turing's achievements are truly remarkable and his impact and influence on computing
is immeasurable, it's been said that "​There isn't a discipline in science that Turing has not had an impact
upon.​"​4
It is important to make sure Alan Turing has received the recognition he deserves and that people have an
enriching appreciation of the great people of history to understand why and how the world is, the way it
is. The first section describes Turing’s work and what his legacy is. Section two discusses how his legacy
has been perceived up to the present day and the last section reports on what is being done in the future to
care for his legacy.
I will begin by considering why Alan Turing’s legacy is so impressive by explaining his work and
accomplishments. Alan Turing(1912­1954), was born in London. He studied mathematics at Kings
College, Cambridge and graduated with a distinction and was Elected Fellow of King's College and was
also awarded a Smith's Prize for his work on probability theory.
During his time at university Turing published a paper​5​
in which he defined the Universal Machine, which
later became known as the Turing Machine.

2. The Turing machine is a theoretical computing machine that is capable of performing any mathematical
computation that can be represented as an algorithm. Most computers today are the direct offspring of a
Turing machine. Time magazine's list of the 100 most important people of the twentieth century included
Alan Turing in that list and said of him: "​The fact remains that everyone who taps at a keyboard, opening
a spreadsheet or a word processing program, is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine.​”​6
Turing went on to complete a PhD in Mathematics at Princeton university, after returning to England, war
was declared and Turing joined the government code and cipher school at Bletchely Park. Here Turing
worked mostly on developing a machine called the Bombe which was used to try and break German
Enigma codes. In 1942, Turing and his college's manage to break Nazi Germany's naval enigma code, his
work was critical in helping to shorten the conflict and saved countless lives. His colleague at Bletchley
Park, Captain Jerry Roberts, said this about him: "​The extraordinary thing is that this quiet man was
probably the most important man of his time, except possibly Churchill.​”​2 ​
For his wartime services Turing
was awarded an OBE, but his work remained secret for many years, this lead to some of his achievement
to go unrecognised for some time.
After the war Alan Turing joined the National Physical Laboratory where he published a paper​7
with the first detailed design of a stored­program computer, around this time he was also working as a top
level intelligence link with USA sharing information on cryptology. Turing later moved to Manchester
and eventually was made deputy director of the Computing Laboratory at Manchester University. Here he
worked on software for one of the earliest stored program computers, the Manchester Mark 1.

3. Whilst at Manchester University Turing was elected Fellow of the Royal Society FRS. He worked on the
nature of artificial intelligence, he published 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence' in which he
developed the Turing Test, in an attempt to define a standard for a machine to be called intelligent.
Turing stated that “​A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into
believing that it was human​.”​8​
and asked “​Can machines think?​”​9​
.
This pushed the boundaries of mathematical thinking at that time and he was quoted as being the Galileo
of a new science.​10​
Currently Manchester University are using Turing ideas to to try and create a brain
like computer.​11
Turing went on to investigate pattern formation and mathematical biology. His work was so
groundbreaking at the time that his Morphogenesis theory took until 2013 to be confirmed.​12
Alan Turing committed suicide on 7 June, 1954 at the age of 41, the reasons surrounding his death do not
correlate with whether his legacy was neglected or not so for brevity I will not go into the unfortunate
circumstances that lead to his suicide.
As evident, Turing achievements are truly remarkable however it's critical to assess whether this legacy is
neglected. It is difficult to measure a legacy, it's useful to look at the recognition which he received for his
achievements.
In the science community, especially in computer science, Turing’s legacy is not neglected. Many
Universities around the world have tributes to Alan Turing which shows how much he is revered and
respected by academic institutions. There are yearly awards given for technical contributions to the
computing community called the Turing award. It is often referred to as the "Nobel Prize" of
Computing.​13

4. There is also Loebner Prize, an annual event where artificial intelligence software tries to pass the Turing
Test, the contest has been run for 24 years yet nobody has managed to pass the test yet.​14​
Turing received
recognition in Manchester due to his huge contribution there. There is a road, bridge and a maths building
at the University of Manchester named after him. There is also a statue memorial of Alan Turing. There
are blue plaques in places of his importance and Turing's papers are preserved for public display in the
Turing museum. His legacy has also been told in the form of plays and TV documentaries.
Recently in 2012, there was a global celebration of his work to mark the centenary of his birth known as
the Turing year. It was coordinated by the TCAC.​1​
Many events and exhibitions were held in more than
20 countries throughout the year to commemorate his legacy. This huge push helped to promote and bring
much needed attention and opportunities to learn about Alan Turing across the world. The collaboration
and effort of all the different countries involved was an incredible push in bringing recognition to Alan
Turing and showed to society that his legacy is worth being remembered and celebrated.
There are steps being planned in the future to look after Alan Turing's legacy, a £42m institute named
after him is to be built.​15​
There is also currently a biopic film being made starring the widely acclaimed
Benedict Cumberbatch playing Alan Turing.​16
This can bring lots of attention to Alan Turing and represent him to an audience beyond the technical
community. There is a case for Turing's neglect in the education system, in the English History
Curriculum​17​
there is no specific mention of him.
The most telling outcome from this is if England isn’t putting much importance in teaching people about
Turing, it seems even less likely that other countries are. I feel more could be done in educating the
country about Turing. The government should have a more focused drive to educate students about him.

5.
Luckily there has a been a big effort in England recently to start teaching computer science in schools and
this could lead to more people learning about Turing which would help prevent his legacy from being
neglected.
Alan Turing is a pioneer, his achievements and work is substantial and enduring, it shaped the history and
definition of computing. He influenced and had a huge impact on many lives, he helped usher in the
Information Era. The world would be a very different place if not for Alan Turing. For these reasons it is
crucial that his legacy is not neglected and that the world is able to appreciate his genius. I would say that
Alan Turing’s legacy is neglected at this moment in time, there has been remarkable progress recently and
the future also looks promising yet more could still be done to bring his legacy to a wider, more general
audience.
Computers are one of the world's greatest invention yet Turing's innovation is still not fully recognised.
Many people still do not know who he is so it is vital that his story is told so that as many people as
possible can discover him. I believe Turing should have the same reputation as Newton or Darwin as one
of England’s greatest scientific minds and to be as respected as Churchill is for his war efforts, so there is
still room to raise his profile to those standards.
One of Turing’s quotes seems to coincide with the answer to has Turing’s legacy been neglected?
“​We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done​”​6​
.

6. Bibliography
1 Rutherfordjournal.org.'Turing, Father Of The Modern Computer'.
[http://www.rutherfordjournal.org/article040101.html]
2 'Alan Turing: Hero'. [http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2186655/alan­turing­hero]
3 TuringFilm.com ­ Codebreaker, 'Alan Turing's Story' [http://www.turingfilm.com/more­about­turing/his­story]
4 Mathcomp.leeds.ac.uk,.. 'The Alan Turing Year ­ 2012 Turing Centenary'
[http://www.mathcomp.leeds.ac.uk/turing2012/]
5 Turing, A.M. On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem.
6 'The Turing Connection ­ The Turing Trust'. [http://turingtrust.co.uk/the­turing­connection/]
7 Turing, A.M. Proposed electronic calculator (ACE).
8 'Alan Turing Scrapbook ­ Turing Test'. [http://www.turing.org.uk/scrapbook/test.html]
9 Turing, A.M. Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind, 59, 433­460
10 Hodges, Andrew. 1983. ​Alan Turing The Enigma​. 1st ed. New York: Simon and Schuster. p418
11 'Research Groups: APT ­ Advanced Processor Technologies (School Of Computer Science ­ The University Of
Manchester)'. [http://apt.cs.manchester.ac.uk/]
12 'Testing Turing’s Theory Of Morphogenesis In Chemical Cells'.
[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/03/05/1322005111.abstract]
13 'A.M. Turing Award'. [http://amturing.acm.org/]
14 'Home Page Of The Loebner Prize'. [http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/loebner­prize.html]
15 BBC News,. 'Alan Turing Institute To Be Set Up'. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology­26651179]
16 Benedict Cumberbatch As Alan Turing – Telegraph'
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film­news/10542683/Benedict­Cumberbatch­as­Alan­Turing­first­look.ht
ml]
17 Gov.uk,. 2014. 'National Curriculum In England: History Programmes Of Study ­ GOV.UK'.
[https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national­curriculum­in­england­history­programmes­of­study/nationa
l­curriculum­in­england­history­programmes­of­study]