The Life of Alan Turing

By Josh Shaffer

Alan Turing was one of the most significant figures of the 20th century He made contributions in a wide range of subjects including mathematics, cryptology, biology, and computer science

Alan Turing was born on June 23, 1912, in London Turing displayed exceptional ability in math and science from a young age His fascination with numbers and chemistry were noticed by his teachers

Despite his talents, he received poor grades Teachers often criticized Turing for his lack of organization, poor penmanship, and disinterest in nonscience related subjects

After finishing secondary school, Turing received a scholarship to Kings College, Cambridge He pursued his lifelong interest in mathematics, both theoretical and applied After graduating from Kings College, Turing was awarded a fellowship which gave him academic freedom

As a fellow at Kings, Turing theorized a universal machine which could perform any calculation given an algorithm Turing used this theoretical machine to solve the Entscheidungsproblem By doing so, he proved that unsolvable mathematical problems exist

After completing his studies at Kings, Turing went to the U.S. to study at Princeton University There Turing was surrounded by some of the most brilliant figures of the time, including Albert Einstein Turing was awarded a doctoral degree from Princeton in 1938 and was offered a position at the university, but opted to return to England instead

Turing hoped to apply his knowledge of mathematics to aid in the imminent war effort Upon returning to England, Turing was hired by the Government Code and Cypher School Once the war broke out in 1939, the GCCS became the premiere center for cryptography

The most important task of the GCCS was cracking the Enigma cipher The Enigma machine was the most important asset of German cryptographers

5 rotors 3 starting letters Plug board permutations

(5 4 3) =158.9 quintillion

263

26! ( ) 6!10!210

In order to solve the intricate Enigma machine, cryptanalysts in Poland designed bombe machines These machines could rapidly test different ciphers that could potentially decrypt an Enigma encrypted letter By implementing mathematics known as sequential analysis, Turing helped make the bombes much more effective at searching for ciphers By 1941, highly effective bombe machines had been built by the GCCS This allowed countless lives to be saved for the Allies and played a key role in deciding who would win the war

Bombe machine

After the war Alan worked on a variety of different projects Working for the National Physical Laboratory, Turing designed the Automatic Computing Engine This machine, although never completed, served as a model for future computers In addition to working at the NPA, Turing worked at the University of Manchester throughout the late 1940s

In 1952, it was discovered by police that Turing was a homosexual Although Turing saw no reason to conceal this, British law dictated that he be given an ultimatum: prison or synthetic estrogen treatment Turing opted for the treatment which rendered him impotent and had a detrimental impact on his life for the next year

On June 7, 1954, Turing died from cyanide poisoning Ostensibly this was the result of poisoning from an apple which lay next to his body when he died, after all, Turings favorite movie was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs However, the apple lying next to Alan was never tested and Alan gave no indication of having a desire to end his own life It is also very possible that Turing accidently ingested the cyanide from a chemistry set he owned

Despite the ambiguity surrounding his death, Turings life was clearly very fascinating and successful From designing the predecessor to the personal computer to saving countless lives by decrypting Nazi ciphers, Turing made several significant contributions to the world in his lifetime and typifies the powerful effect mathematics can have in our world

The End

Sources
Corrigan, Jim. Profiles in Mathematics Alan Turing. Greensboro: Morgan Reynolds Publishing, 2009 Alan Turing Biography. The Biography Channel website. May 2013