Millions of valiant soldiers, sailors, and airmen contributed to the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, but one of the war’s biggest heroes was a little-known British scientist who never stepped foot on a battlefield.
Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician, logician, and cryptologist who played a pivotal role in cracking the Enigma code — the system used by the Nazis to encrypt secret messages — which many experts believed was impossible to break. The intelligence gleaned from those intercepted communications enabled Allied forces to defeat the Axis powers in many crucial engagements.
Military historians estimate that Turing’s groundbreaking research shortened the war in Europe by more than two years and saved some 14 million …show more content…
He is widely considered to be the father of both computer science and artificial intelligence — the theory and development of machines capable of learning and thinking like humans. He also made major contributions in the fields of logic and mathematical biology.
Turing had an eccentric and capricious personality. Colleagues affectionately called him “prof” — short for professor — because of his shabby, nail-bitten, tie-less appearance and stammering speech. He would sometimes show up to work wearing pajama tops under his coat and a string wrapped around his waist to hold up his pants. He was known to chain his tea mug to the radiator with a combination lock to prevent co-workers from using it. During hay fever season he would ride his bicycle to work wearing a government-issued gas mask.
“He was a hippie before his time,” remarked Oxford University mathematician Andrew Hodges, who wrote a biography of Turing in 1983. “He was very casual in those days, and thought very scruffy.” Had he lived a few decades later, Hodges speculated, he probably would have worn t-shirts and jeans every
Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician, logician, and cryptologist who played a pivotal role in cracking the Enigma code — the system used by the Nazis to encrypt secret messages — which many experts believed was impossible to break. The intelligence gleaned from those intercepted communications enabled Allied forces to defeat the Axis powers in many crucial engagements.
Military historians estimate that Turing’s groundbreaking research shortened the war in Europe by more than two years and saved some 14 million …show more content…
He is widely considered to be the father of both computer science and artificial intelligence — the theory and development of machines capable of learning and thinking like humans. He also made major contributions in the fields of logic and mathematical biology.
Turing had an eccentric and capricious personality. Colleagues affectionately called him “prof” — short for professor — because of his shabby, nail-bitten, tie-less appearance and stammering speech. He would sometimes show up to work wearing pajama tops under his coat and a string wrapped around his waist to hold up his pants. He was known to chain his tea mug to the radiator with a combination lock to prevent co-workers from using it. During hay fever season he would ride his bicycle to work wearing a government-issued gas mask.
“He was a hippie before his time,” remarked Oxford University mathematician Andrew Hodges, who wrote a biography of Turing in 1983. “He was very casual in those days, and thought very scruffy.” Had he lived a few decades later, Hodges speculated, he probably would have worn t-shirts and jeans every