Alan Turing
posted:
I have to admit I did not know anything about Alan Turing before I got this phone call from Lillian Israel from ACM, standing for Association for Computing Machinery.
“Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war.”
After some readings I've learned Turing's homosexuality resulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952 because homosexual acts were illegal in the United Kingdom at that time, and he accepted treatment with female hormones (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison. He died in 1954, several weeks before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning.
Great Britan has since made an official apology.
How sweet!!
