Alan Mathison
Turing, OBE, FRS 23
June 1912 – 7 June 1954), was a British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist. He was highly influential
in the development of computer
science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm"
and "computation" with the Turing
machine, which played a significant role in the creation of the
modern computer. Turing is widely
considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence.
During World War II,
Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School
(GCCS)at Bletchley
Park, Britain's code breaking centre. For a time he was head of Hut 8, the
section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of
techniques for breaking German ciphers,
including the method of the bombe, an electromechanicalmachine
that could find settings for the Enigma
machine.
After the war he
worked at the National Physical Laboratory,
where he created one of the first designs for a stored-program computer, the ACE. In 1948 Turing joined Max Newman's Computing Laboratory at Manchester University,
where he assisted in the development of the Manchester computers and became interested in mathematical biology. He wrote a paper on
the chemical basis of morphogenesis, and he predictedoscillating chemical
reactions such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, which were
first observed in the 1960s.
Turing's
homosexuality resulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952, when homosexual acts
were still illegal in the United Kingdom. He accepted treatment with female
hormones (chemical castration) as an alternative to
prison. He died in 1954, just over two weeks before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined it
was suicide; his mother and some others believed his death was accidental. On
10 September 2009, following an Internet
campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official
public apology on
behalf of the British government for the way in which Turing was treated after
the war.
Reference:
For further information click on the link below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
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