Alan Turing was a genius.The man who had a statue built for him in Whitworth Gardens Manchester, preceded the modern computer,cracked the enigma code during the war,broke grounds in technology and sadly killed himself some say due to how he was treated for his homosexuality,at the tender age of 41 in 1954.What he could have achieved if he had stayed alive for a few more years is staggering just to imagine.Many times ,he has been referred to as the outcast who gave us the modern
world.Here,we take a look at some historic Alan Turing facts.
Did you know that he was one of the geniuses of Bletchley Park who helped crack the Enigma code and win the Allies the Second World War?It has been ascertained that this act helped save 14 millions lives by shortening the war by two to four years.
He was a logician, mathematician and computer scientist. He is generally known for his work in artificial intelligence and computer science.Some revelations in his biography tells us that Turing who was born in London in 1912, at school was able to solve complex problems without having been taught them.So its no surprise that many years later,a number of colleges was named after this man.A Manchester road is also named after him.
In 1936, he came up with the idea of a machine that was able to compute anything that could be computed. This was known as the Turing Machine and led to the modern computer.
Like most geniuses,he had a bit of wackiness in him.He often ran 60 km to London for meetings, and he liked to chain his coffee mug to a radiator at Bletchley Park to stop other people using it.He was Wacko Jacko before Wacko himself.
In the 1940s he worked in the University of Manchester in mathematics and computing. His experiment, the Turing test tried to devise an intelligence standard for technology.In 1948 he wrote a chess programme for a computer that had yet to be invented. He also published several important papers on mathematical biology.
Our hero also worked on standards for machines to be called intelligent. The same principle is used today in online CAPTCHA tests, which determine whether a user is a person or a machine.
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He however died a very sad death,taking his own life by eating an apple containing cyanide in 1954.
Among the accolades that have since come his way is being named as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. A Manchester road is named for him, as are many colleges,
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Technology