Alan Turing

[Sam Slater]

Since it's the 100th birthday of Alan Turing, today, I thought it appropriate in paying tribute to this great man. A man that not only was a major influence behind breaking German ciphers, essential in winning the war against Nazism, but also his ideas on computation led directly to all the modern computers we use today.

This man didn't get the credit he deserved when alive, due to his sexuality, but should be considered amongst the greats of these islands. He belongs, without embarrassment, alongside Newton, Darwin, Brunel and Shakespeare.

[planeterotica]

As a school kid he lived a while down in Hastings and apparently one of his early school reports states he was useless at maths, probably the reason he invented the computer to do all those calculations for him !wink!

[Alex L]

Well said, complete agreement with all of that. Have you made a visit to Bletchley Park?

[RoddersUK]

As I understand it Turing didn't invent the computer. A Post Office Telephone engineer designed and built it and it was named Collosus.
I don't understand how he was so bad at maths as a kid when he turned out to have one of the most analytical mathematical minds ever.
Without doubt he never received the recognition that he so richly deserved, but it seems to be a feature of our race that truly great men and women are only fully recognised after their death, many years later in some cases. Shame really.

[Arginald Valleywater]

A great man; along with his team at Station X they shortened WW2 and saved thousands of lives.

[Jonone]

In order to be recognised and celebrated you need people to champion you and create the mythology. It seems the achievements alone aren't enough. Until fairly recently Turing never had influential supporters, perhaps because they believed that the association with Turing might affect thier own reputation adversely.

[rgb]

He was born the day before my father was born and he died the same day I was born - of interest only to me, I suppose !hmmm!

[Essex Lad]

I thought I read recently (on the BBC) that he didn't kill himself after all - but died of an accidental overdose.

[jimslip]

Yes they are re-opening the case.Apparentley he liked mucking around with a chemistry set and possibly killed himself as a result. About him being, "Useless at maths at school", this is quite normal for geniuses, who think of maths in a visual, ethereal sense.

[steveb]

Millions of lives. Tens of millions probably.

I think we can all get behind Alan, which I'm sure he'd appreciate. !wink!