Alan Turing Centenary

[julesjones]

Alan Turing would have been 100 today. It is, rightfully, being covered in depth by the media. In a very real sense, he created the world we live in. And not just once, but twice over. His life was the stuff of legend, as was his death from cyanide, a half-eaten apple by his side.

And he was only forty one when he died.

Perhaps he'd reached the end of his creative period, and there would have been no more of the world-changing work. But we never had the chance to find out. At least now he has the recognition he deserves for his wartime work, across a network of machines that ultimately spring from his peacetime work.

Comments

[kalypso]

Absolutely. One of the recent documentaries said "He'd have had a state funeral if only they'd known who he was." And I have only two degrees of separation, via my friend Roger Altounyan.

[threeoutside.livejournal.com]

He is one of those people I would so love to be able to bring back, if only for an hour, to see that he was ultimately vindicated, and appreciated. Van Gogh, of course, is another (the Doctor Who Van Gogh episode was such a massive surprise - someone else has thought the same as I have since I first "met" the artist as a teenager! - and ridiculously emotional to me.)

[julesjones]

I think that Doctor Who episode spoke to a lot of people, and about more people than Van Gogh.

What's particularly sad about Turing, and many of the other Bletchley Park people, is that they went to their graves carrying their secrets. They could have had recognition for their achievements -- if they'd been willing to talk. There was a mention in one of this week's articles that Turing got quite annoyed when some well-meaning person added "OBE" to the nameplate on his office door, because at the time it was very much not public what he got the OBE for.