Alan Turing, the father of modern computing, was born 100
years ago today.
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| Alan Turing |
His work in the 1930’s on mathematical computation led him
to the idea that a machine could perform the tasks of any other machine, or in
other words, is “provably capable of computing anything that is computable”. He
called this a 'Universal Machine' (now known as a Universal Turing machine), that is, a machine that can have more than one use. This
paper was a blueprint for the modern computer.
During World War 2, Turing worked at Bletchley Park
and tackled the problem of the German naval Enigma code and was one of the
chief architects of deciphering it with his design of the bombe, the
cryptanalytic machine. Germany
then developed another cipher machine, the Tunny, much more difficult to break.
Turing devised a technique for doing so, known as Turingery.
On 19 February 1946, he presented a paper which was the
first detailed design of a stored-program computer. In 1948, he went
to Manchester University
and as Deputy Director of the Computing Laboratory, he worked
on the first stored-program computer - the Manchester
Mark 1 and used his experience at Bletchley Park
to design input/output devices for it.
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| Alan Turing with two colleagues and a Ferranti computer in January 1951. (SSPL/Getty Images) |
He continued theoretical work and in
1950 published "Computing machinery and intelligence",
expounding the “Turing Test” for artificial intelligence, that a computer could
be said to "think" if a human interrogator could not tell it apart,
through conversation, from a human being. He said it would take 100 years
before it might be possible, that was in 1952.
In 1952, Turing’s house was burgled by a man that Turing
knew and he reported it to the police. The police investigation questioned
Turing’s association with the man and led to a charge and conviction of gross
indecency. Given a choice of prison or chemical castration, Turing chose the
latter.
On 8 June 1954 he was found dead of cyanide poisoning,
presumed suicide.
His mother and family remained unaware of his vital work at Bletchley Park due to the Official Secrets Act.
In 1999, Time Magazine named Turing as one of the 100 Most
Important People of the 20th century for his role in the creation of
the modern computer, and stated: "The fact remains that everyone who taps
at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working
on an incarnation of a Turing machine."
Alan Turing was a visionary and should have been knighted
for his contribution to this country and to the war effort, not criminalized.
