This statue at Bletchley Park in England is a tribute to the man credited as the father of computer science, artificial intelligence, and someone responsible for shortening the length of World War II.
A photo included in a 2012 Bletchley Park exhibition on the life of Alan Turing, as reported by TechRepublic’s Nick Heath.
Another photo from the Bletchley Park exhibit on Turing’s life.
During World War II, Bletchley Park housed the UK’s code breaking efforts against the Axis powers. Turing worked here.
A photo included in the Monopoly board game created in 2012 about Turing’s life.
The German Enigma machine was one of the biggest problems during the war — the codes would reset each day, leaving the allies with 24 hours to try and crack them.
Turing devised a machine that could eliminate potential codes mathematically. It worked a bit like 36 separate Enigma machines trying to crack the code, which would then let the Allies understand messages sent to German u-boats. The prototype took nine months to build by Turing and his team.
Author Andrew Hodges turned Turing’s life into this biography in 1983. The book is also the basis for the upcoming movie, “The Imitation Game.”
“The Imitation Game,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing, centers around Turing’s life, particularly his time cracking ciphers for the Allies during World War II. The film will be released in November.
Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Turing in “The Imitation Game,” told The Telegraph in an interview that he thought Turing “should be on banknotes.”
Heath also reported from the Bletchley Park exhibit that as a child, Turing never had a teddy bear. So, he bought one as an adult and named it Porgy. It’s said he’d practice lectures on the bear while he was at Cambridge.
This is a Turing machine built from Legos. It’s a theoretical machine Turing designed for computing in the late 30s.
Turning died in 1954. There’s debate as to whether it was a suicide or an accident. His death came a short time after he was convicted of gross indecency when he admitted to having a relationship with another man. In December 2013, Turing received a royal pardon. This memorial is in Sackville Park in Manchester, England.
Erin Carson is a Staff Reporter for CNET and a former Multimedia Editor for TechRepublic.
