Alan Mathison Turing (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954), was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which played a significant role in the creation of the modern computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence.
Alan Turing History as Google Celebrates it's 100th
During the Second World War, Turing
worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS) at Bletchley
Park, Britain's codebreaking centre. For a time he was head of Hut 8,
the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis.
He devised a number of techniques for
breaking German ciphers, including the method of the bombe, an
electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma
machine.
After the war he worked at the
National Physical Laboratory, where he created one of the first designs
for a stored-program computer, the ACE. In 1948 Turing joined Max
Newman's Computing Laboratory at Manchester University, where he
assisted in the development of the Manchester computers[4] and became interested in mathematical biology.
He wrote a paper on the chemical basis
of morphogenesis, and he predicted oscillating chemical reactions such
as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, which were first observed in the 1960s.
Turing's homosexuality resulted in a
criminal prosecution in 1952, when homosexual acts were still illegal in
the United Kingdom. He accepted treatment with female hormones
(chemical castration) as an alternative
to prison. He died in 1954, just over two weeks before his 42nd
birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined it was suicide;
his mother and some others believed his death was accidental. On 10
September 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for the way in which Turing was treated after the war.
0 Comments