Alan Turing Accomplishments

Alan Turing was misunderstood, to say the least. The man we now regard as the father of modern computer science was heavily criticized and discouraged during his life for various reasons. Nonetheless, Turing was an incomparable mathematician way ahead of his time, and he made major contributions to the math and technology fields, helping win World War II and creating a path for modern computers to become a reality. We recognize him today with great honor and respect, but throughout his lifetime, and even for quite some time after, his actions and accomplishments have caused a great deal of scrutiny. However, this doesn’t negate the fact that his accomplishments were indeed noteworthy. So noteworthy, in fact, that his work has made its way to our mathematics course under the study of encryption and coding. What Alan Turing did as a mathematician during World War II involved the use of codes and encryption to break the unbreakable enigma machine and subsequently win the war. His work had humble beginnings and staggering remains, but his involvement in breaking the enigma machine has indeed changed the course of history for the better. Turing was very much a self-involved student growing up. …show more content…
To generate a public number, pick two prime numbers, such as 11 and 13. Calculate for m, in which m = (11 - 1)(13 - 1) = 10 x 12 = 120. Find a number not divisible by m, such as 7, the first public number. The second public number is derived from multiplying the two initial numbers, 11 x 13 = 143. The private number is formed using modular arithmetic with the first public number to find d, where 7d = 1 mod 120. So the private number is 103. These three numbers are then used as the codes to encode and decode the messages, much like the codes sent out through the enigma machine during the