Alan mathison turing

(1912-1954):

The solitary genius who wanted to build a brain.

A long-distance runner and cyclist, Tur­ing has been described as a self-reliant misfit ¹ who ran against the social norms of his time. He was a homosexual at a time when this was not only illegal but was deemed to be a security risk. He paid the price of being found out, if that is the right expression, for Turing was deeply honest to himself and never concealed his homosex­uality.

In his trial at Knutsford in 1952 he was described as "a national asset" and "one of the most profound and original mathematic­al minds of his generation". It was true, but he was still found guilty and was given probation ² on condition that he accepted hormone treatment - in effect, chemical castration. According to his biographer, Andrew Hodges, Turing rode the storm. But a little over two years later, on June 7, 1954, he doused an apple with cyanide and killed himself.

Turing's claim to fame is as one of the fathers of electronic computers. His 1936 paper "On Computable Numbers" is the classic in its field. He dreamed of making a "brain", his Universal Machine. His influ­ence was felt by all the early pioneers of computers from von Neumann in the USA to the teams that built the first post-war British computers. The National Physical Labora­tory's ACE computer was his concept of a Universal Machine. Today his memorial is The Turing Institute in Glasgow, dedicated to research and training in artificial intelli­gence.

Childhood

They say the child is the father of the man and that seems to have been true of Alan Mathison Turing. For long periods he was separated from his parents, especially his father. Later in life he was a confirmed solitary, one with whom many found it difficult to get along ³. Turing was born a Londoner, in Paddington, on June 23,1912. His mother, formerly Ethel Stoney, was a distant relative of George Johnstone Stoney, the Irish physicist who gave the electron its name. Alan's father, John Mathison Turing, served the Empire through the Indian Civil Service. For the first decade of his life Alan and his elder brother, another John, stayed in Eng­land whilst their parents lived in India, except for their often long visits to England.

When Alan was about 12 years old, his father resigned from the Indian Civil Service and settled for an early retirement in France, at Dinard in Brittany. School French lessons suddenly acquired a purpose. So far he had been educated by his mother, at a private day school, and then at a preparatory school near Tunbridge Wells. He was particularly in­terested in maps and formulae.

For public school it was decided that he should go to Sherborne in Dorset. When he arrived at Southampton from France in 1926 there were no trains because of the General Strike. He set out on his bicycle and arrived on the second day. Later in life he rejected an offer of an official car in favour of his bike. Cycling and running were to be his great loves.

At Sherborne his ability at mathematics developed, as did his passion for science. He took an avid interest in astronomy to which he was introduced by a fellow student with whom he developed an intense, but doomed, friendship. Tuberculosis killed his friend in 1930. But Sherborne fulfilled its purpose and in 1931 he progressed to King's College, Cambridge - Britain's Mecca for a mathematician. Turing gained his degree in mathematics with distinction in 1934 and was awarded a research studentship of £200. This was followed in 1935, at the tender age of 22, by a coveted Fellowship⁴ at £300. At last the had the academic freedom to pursue his ideas.