The Curious Case Of Alan Turing

Alan Turing is somewhat of an unsung hero, to put it bluntly, even if he is often considered the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence and regarded very highly by computer scientists, logisticians and mathematicians, most people fail to understand the severity of the impact he had on this world and how he was treated in return.

Turing was no doubt a genius, his intellect was far superior to his peers, and so was his behaviour and general way of approaching things. He was criticized from a very young age for being different by his teachers, headmasters, and schoolmates. Turing was capable of solving advanced mathematics without having studied even basic calculus, he was fluent in Morse code at the age of twelve, and he could not only understand Einstein’s work but could also deduce his questioning of Newton’s ‘Laws of motion’ only at the age of sixteen.

Quite obviously Turing did not have many friends since he was not a people’s person, his only friend was Christopher Morcom who people speculate was his first love, he introduced him to astronomy and taught him Morse code, and they often had intense discussions about the marvel of science and mathematics, Turing was constantly bullied by his peers due to him being different and he was usually protected by Morcom, however Turing lost his friend to bovine tuberculosis which impacted him severely, but he began to work harder on science and mathematics in order to cope with his loss.

He graduated from Cambridge and Princeton and his achievements and discoveries during his college years are exemplary, he devised new theorems and new approaches and languages, he devised the ‘Turing Machine’s’ which to this day are a central object of study in the history of computation and is the central concept of the modern computer. But not only was he responsible for the advancement in technology but he was also responsible for the survival of humanity.

Turing was responsible for decoding ‘The Enigma Machines’ which were a series of electro-mechanical rotor cypher machines which were used by the Nazi’s as a method of communication, he worked alongside Hugh Alexander and Joan Clarke (a woman whom he had to fight for to have on the team as her genius was not valued by anyone else since women weren’t allowed to be successful in academic fields), amongst other people. The Enigma Machines reset every twenty-four hours making it impossible to decipher them as every time they came close to doing it, it would immediately reset, the mathematicians worked tirelessly to successfully decipher them but they were unable to do so, as it needed more than just pen and paper, Turing devised an electromechanical machine that would decipher The Enigma which came to be known as the ‘Bombe’, his colleagues who earlier had mocked his eccentric behavior and criticized that he wasn’t working along with them learned to believe his methods after they were proven successful, the functioning of the Bombe like Turing is complicated to explain but to summarize it, The Bombe performed a chain of logical deductions based on the crib which was implemented electromechanically.

Turing and his team at Bletchley Park successfully deciphered The Enigma Machines and had access to the whereabouts of Germany’s military and the information about their next attacks and confidential plans, they had to secretly feed this intelligence to the British government as the Axis Powers finding out about them having decoded the machine would mean that they would stop using the machine, making their work worthless, this increased the pressure on Turing who had to maintain a secretive lifestyle, he was accused of being a spy several times by the people around him as there was a Russian spy amongst his team, this took a toll on Turing’s mental health adding to the frustration that he and his colleagues faced of not having enough time, money, machines and people. They directly wrote to Winston Churchill, bending all the rules that their needs were very small compared to the vast expenditure on men and money that the army required, Churchill declared that this was to be their ultimate priority and they had to provide them with all the resources that they could as this was the only way they could possibly win the war. After the manpower and the number of machines increased, they successfully won the Second World War.

Turing continued his work of mathematics, science, and cryptanalysis after decoding The Enigma, turning to mathematical biology and he published several books. He also devised the ‘Turing Test’, which is a test of the machine’s ability to display intelligence indistinguishable from that of a human being, used even as of now.

Alan Turing’s life, however, was miserable. After he was outed as a homosexual following a burglary by investigators, he was convicted of gross indecency, he was forced to choose between imprisonment and hormonal treatments and he chose the latter. He was barred from continuing his practice in cryptanalysis, mathematics and computer science. He later committed suicide by cyanide poisoning due to clinical depression.

The British government did apologize for their mistreatment and pardoned his conviction of “gross indecency” and he received a posthumous knighthood, along with several posthumous awards.

Turing was responsible for saving over fourteen million lives and he shortened the war by at least two years but was disrespected, disregarded and ignored due to his sexuality. The severe impact that he has had on this world cannot be explained or understood as the world would have been entirely different if not for him, making this a very melancholic story of an unsung hero.