Alan Turing

1881

Turing's mother, Julius's wife, was Ethel Sara Turing (; 1881–1976), daughter of Edward Waller Stoney, chief engineer of the Madras Railways.

1885

Despite these accomplishments, he was never fully recognised in his home country during his lifetime because much of his work was covered by the Official Secrets Act. Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts; the Labouchere Amendment of 1885 had mandated that "gross indecency" was a criminal offence in the UK.

Homosexual acts were criminal offences in the United Kingdom at that time, and both men were charged with "gross indecency" under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885.

1911

In 1928, aged 16, Turing encountered Albert Einstein's work; not only did he grasp it, but it is possible that he managed to deduce Einstein's questioning of Newton's laws of motion from a text in which this was never made explicit. ===Christopher Morcom=== At Sherborne, Turing formed a significant friendship with fellow pupil Christopher Collan Morcom (13 July 1911 – 13 February 1930), who has been described as Turing's "first love".

1912

Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist.

However, both Julius and Ethel wanted their children to be brought up in Britain, so they moved to Maida Vale, London, where Alan Turing was born on 23 June 1912, as recorded by a blue plaque on the outside of the house of his birth, later the Colonnade Hotel.

1922

The headmistress recognised his talent early on, as did many of his subsequent teachers. Between January 1922 and 1926, Turing was educated at Hazelhurst Preparatory School, an independent school in the village of Frant in Sussex (now East Sussex).

Unknown to the committee, the theorem had already been proven, in 1922, by Jarl Waldemar Lindeberg.

1926

The headmistress recognised his talent early on, as did many of his subsequent teachers. Between January 1922 and 1926, Turing was educated at Hazelhurst Preparatory School, an independent school in the village of Frant in Sussex (now East Sussex).

In 1926, at the age of 13, he went on to Sherborne School, a boarding independent school in the market town of Sherborne in Dorset, where he boarded at Westcott House.

The first day of term coincided with the 1926 General Strike, in Britain, but Turing was so determined to attend, that he rode his bicycle unaccompanied from Southampton to Sherborne, stopping overnight at an inn. Turing's natural inclination towards mathematics and science did not earn him respect from some of the teachers at Sherborne, whose definition of education placed more emphasis on the classics.

1927

His parents purchased a house in Guildford in 1927, and Turing lived there during school holidays.

Despite this, Turing continued to show remarkable ability in the studies he loved, solving advanced problems in 1927 without having studied even elementary calculus.

1928

In 1928, aged 16, Turing encountered Albert Einstein's work; not only did he grasp it, but it is possible that he managed to deduce Einstein's questioning of Newton's laws of motion from a text in which this was never made explicit. ===Christopher Morcom=== At Sherborne, Turing formed a significant friendship with fellow pupil Christopher Collan Morcom (13 July 1911 – 13 February 1930), who has been described as Turing's "first love".

The Entscheidungsproblem (decision problem) was originally posed by German mathematician David Hilbert in 1928.

1930

In 1928, aged 16, Turing encountered Albert Einstein's work; not only did he grasp it, but it is possible that he managed to deduce Einstein's questioning of Newton's laws of motion from a text in which this was never made explicit. ===Christopher Morcom=== At Sherborne, Turing formed a significant friendship with fellow pupil Christopher Collan Morcom (13 July 1911 – 13 February 1930), who has been described as Turing's "first love".

Their relationship provided inspiration in Turing's future endeavours, but it was cut short by Morcom's death, in February 1930, from complications of bovine tuberculosis, contracted after drinking infected cow's milk some years previously. The event caused Turing great sorrow.

1931

In a later letter, also written to Morcom's mother, Turing wrote: ===University and work on computability=== After Sherborne, Turing studied as an undergraduate from 1931 to 1934 at King's College, Cambridge, where he was awarded first-class honours in mathematics.

In this paper, Turing reformulated Kurt Gödel's 1931 results on the limits of proof and computation, replacing Gödel's universal arithmetic-based formal language with the formal and simple hypothetical devices that became known as Turing machines.

1933

A day before the third anniversary of Morcom's death (13 February 1933), he wrote to Mrs.

1934

In a later letter, also written to Morcom's mother, Turing wrote: ===University and work on computability=== After Sherborne, Turing studied as an undergraduate from 1931 to 1934 at King's College, Cambridge, where he was awarded first-class honours in mathematics.

1935

In 1935, at the age of 22, he was elected a Fellow of King's College on the strength of a dissertation in which he proved the central limit theorem.

1936

A blue plaque at the college was unveiled on the centenary of his birth on 23 June 2012 and is now installed at the college's Keynes Building on King's Parade. In 1936, Turing published his paper "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem".

To this day, Turing machines are a central object of study in theory of computation. From September 1936 to July 1938, Turing spent most of his time studying under Church at Princeton University, in the second year as a Jane Eliza Procter Visiting Fellow.

1938

In 1938, he obtained his PhD from the Department of Mathematics at Princeton University.

To this day, Turing machines are a central object of study in theory of computation. From September 1936 to July 1938, Turing spent most of his time studying under Church at Princeton University, in the second year as a Jane Eliza Procter Visiting Fellow.

In June 1938, he obtained his PhD from the Department of Mathematics at Princeton; his dissertation, Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals, introduced the concept of ordinal logic and the notion of relative computing, in which Turing machines are augmented with so-called oracles, allowing the study of problems that cannot be solved by Turing machines.

The historian and wartime codebreaker Asa Briggs has said, "You needed exceptional talent, you needed genius at Bletchley and Turing's was that genius." From September 1938, Turing worked part-time with the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), the British codebreaking organisation.

1939

John von Neumann wanted to hire him as his postdoctoral assistant, but he went back to the United Kingdom. ==Career and research== When Turing returned to Cambridge, he attended lectures given in 1939 by Ludwig Wittgenstein about the foundations of mathematics.

Soon after the July 1939 meeting near Warsaw at which the Polish Cipher Bureau gave the British and French details of the wiring of Enigma machine's rotors and their method of decrypting Enigma machine's messages, Turing and Knox developed a broader solution.

Turing's approach was more general, using crib-based decryption for which he produced the functional specification of the bombe (an improvement on the Polish Bomba). On 4 September 1939, the day after the UK declared war on Germany, Turing reported to Bletchley Park, the wartime station of GC&CS. Specifying the bombe was the first of five major cryptanalytical advances that Turing made during the war.

1940

The Polish method relied on an insecure indicator procedure that the Germans were likely to change, which they in fact did in May 1940.

The first bombe was installed on 18 March 1940. By late 1941, Turing and his fellow cryptanalysts Gordon Welchman, Hugh Alexander and Stuart Milner-Barry were frustrated.

1941

The first bombe was installed on 18 March 1940. By late 1941, Turing and his fellow cryptanalysts Gordon Welchman, Hugh Alexander and Stuart Milner-Barry were frustrated.

Later papers were not available until Collected Works of A. M. Turing was published in 1992. ==Personal life== ===Engagement=== In 1941, Turing proposed marriage to Hut 8 colleague Joan Clarke, a fellow mathematician and cryptanalyst, but their engagement was short-lived.

1942

Turing became a general consultant for cryptanalysis at Bletchley Park. Alexander wrote of Turing's contribution: ===Turingery=== In July 1942, Turing devised a technique termed Turingery (or jokingly Turingismus) for use against the Lorenz cipher messages produced by the Germans' new Geheimschreiber (secret writer) machine.

1943

He returned to Bletchley Park in March 1943.

1945

Turing also consulted with Bell Labs on the development of SIGSALY, a secure voice system that was used in the later years of the war. ===Early computers and the Turing test=== Between 1945 and 1947, Turing lived in Hampton, London, while he worked on the design of the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine) at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL).

1946

He presented a paper on 19 February 1946, which was the first detailed design of a stored-program computer.

1947

Turing also consulted with Bell Labs on the development of SIGSALY, a secure voice system that was used in the later years of the war. ===Early computers and the Turing test=== Between 1945 and 1947, Turing lived in Hampton, London, while he worked on the design of the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine) at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL).

In late 1947 he returned to Cambridge for a sabbatical year during which he produced a seminal work on Intelligent Machinery that was not published in his lifetime.

It took place in Göttingen in 1947.

1948

In 1948, Turing joined Max Newman's Computing Machine Laboratory, at the Victoria University of Manchester, where he helped develop the Manchester computers and became interested in mathematical biology.

Turing tried out for the 1948 British Olympic team but he was hampered by an injury.

Participants were Womersley, Turing, Porter from England and a few German researchers like Zuse, Walther, and Billing (for more details see Herbert Bruderer, Konrad Zuse und die Schweiz). In 1948, Turing was appointed reader in the Mathematics Department at the Victoria University of Manchester.

A reversed form of the Turing test is widely used on the Internet; the CAPTCHA test is intended to determine whether the user is a human or a computer. In 1948 Turing, working with his former undergraduate colleague, D.G.

1950

It executed its first program on 10 May 1950, and a number of later computers around the world owe much to it, including the English Electric DEUCE and the American Bendix G-15.

During this time, he continued to do more abstract work in mathematics, and in "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" (Mind, October 1950), Turing addressed the problem of artificial intelligence, and proposed an experiment that became known as the Turing test, an attempt to define a standard for a machine to be called "intelligent".

By 1950, the program was completed and dubbed the Turochamp.

1951

To calculate the extent of this, Turing would have needed a powerful computer, but these were not so freely available in 1951, so he had to use linear approximations to solve the equations by hand.

1952

Despite these accomplishments, he was never fully recognised in his home country during his lifetime because much of his work was covered by the Official Secrets Act. Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts; the Labouchere Amendment of 1885 had mandated that "gross indecency" was a criminal offence in the UK.

In 1952, he tried to implement it on a Ferranti Mark 1, but lacking enough power, the computer was unable to execute the program.

After admitting his homosexuality to his fiancée, who was reportedly "unfazed" by the revelation, Turing decided that he could not go through with the marriage. ===Conviction for indecency=== In January 1952, Turing was 39 when he started a relationship with Arnold Murray, a 19-year-old unemployed man.

Turing and Murray, was brought to trial on 31 March 1952.

1954

Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist.

Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning.

1960

He wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis and predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, first observed in the 1960s.

1992

Later papers were not available until Collected Works of A. M. Turing was published in 1992. ==Personal life== ===Engagement=== In 1941, Turing proposed marriage to Hut 8 colleague Joan Clarke, a fellow mathematician and cryptanalyst, but their engagement was short-lived.

2009

An inquest determined his death as a suicide, but it has been noted that the known evidence is also consistent with accidental poisoning. In 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for "the appalling way he was treated".

2012

The plaque was unveiled on 23 June 2012, the centenary of Turing's birth. Very early in life, Turing showed signs of the genius that he was later to display prominently.

A blue plaque at the college was unveiled on the centenary of his birth on 23 June 2012 and is now installed at the college's Keynes Building on King's Parade. In 1936, Turing published his paper "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem".

He wrote two papers discussing mathematical approaches, titled The Applications of Probability to Cryptography and Paper on Statistics of Repetitions, which were of such value to GC&CS and its successor GCHQ that they were not released to the UK National Archives until April 2012, shortly before the centenary of his birth.

Further research in the area suggests that Turing's work can partially explain the growth of "feathers, hair follicles, the branching pattern of lungs, and even the left-right asymmetry that puts the heart on the left side of the chest." In 2012, Sheth, et al.

2013

Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a posthumous pardon in 2013.

2017

The "Alan Turing law" is now an informal term for a 2017 law in the United Kingdom that retroactively pardoned men cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts.

2019

A 2019 BBC series, as voted by the audience, named him the greatest person of the 20th century. ==Early life and education== ===Family=== Turing was born in Maida Vale, London, while his father, Julius Mathison Turing (1873–1947), was on leave from his position with the Indian Civil Service (ICS) at Chatrapur, then in the Madras Presidency and presently in Odisha state, in India.

2021

He is due to appear on the Bank of England £50 note, to be released in June 2021.




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