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'''Alan Turing''' (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was a British mathematician who massively contributed to modern [[computer science]] and [[cryptography]].<ref>[http://www.turing.org.uk/bio The Biography of Alan Turing], ''turing.org''</ref> Though perhaps not His contributions to the father development of computer science, he is frequently credited for being and to the father Allied victory in [[World War II]] have been exaggerated by those who are more interested in his [[homosexuality]] than in balanced history. The development of theoretical the computer science in fact goes back to the nineteenth-century and artificial intelligencethe work of [[Ada Lovelace]] and [[Charles Babbage]].<ref>[http://books.google.de/books?id=r5kOgS1IB-8C&pg=PA35&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false Steven Homer, Alan L. Selman: ''Computability and Complexity Theory''], p. 35</ref>
==The Turing Machine==
In the 1930s, Turing proposed the concept of a "[[Turing machine|Universal Turing Machine]]". Turing had first proposed that the operations needed to calculate any formula could be broken down into a base set of instructions (or primitive [[Recursion|recursive functions]]) that could, in principle, be followed by a machine: the "Turing Machine". Once fully formalized, the calculations needed to derive the instructions themselves were capable of being run by a Turing Machine. The looped logic allowed the conception of a Turing Machine that could create its own instruction and, in principle, run a huge variety of calculations. Turing then used the concept of Universal Turing Machine to prove the undecidability insolubility of the [[halting problem]].
==Code breaking==
During [[World War II]] Turing was assigned to the codebreaking unit at [[Bletchley Park]], where he worked on the decoding of the German's [[Enigma machine]]. Turing 's contribution to this has been massively exaggerated. He was actually only one of hundreds of people working at Bletchley, including the mathematicians Bill Tutte and his colleagues played a significant role in Tommy Flowers and John Tiltman the Allied victory chief cryptographer, who was in WWIIcharge of all projects. Work on breaking the Enigma code had started long before the war, allowing Allied forces access to and cryptographers from all over Europe including Poland, had done the ground work. Turing's work on Enigma was greatly helped by the lucky capture of an Enigma machine from a German communication networks throughout much U-boat, which pushed the project forward by several years. In the later part of WW2, because of the capture of the Enigma machine, the Nazis shifted from using the Enigma code to using a far more fiendish one. They called it the Lorenz cipher and the Bletchley control nicknamed it Tunny, or the Fish. While the Enigma code machine had only three wheels, the Tunny machine had twelve, and had other random tricks built into it to make decoding so difficult that even a mathematician could hardly calculate all the possible combinations. The code changed with every letter of the same message. In the later part of the war, from 1943 onwards, Tunny, not Enigma, was the code that the Germans depended on for their top-most secrets and attack plans. Tutte and Flowers worked on breaking the Tunny code. Bill Tutte, the principal mathematician who undertook the work on the fiendish Tunny, came from a humble background, being the son of a gardener and a cook, and he went to a grammar school - unlike Turing who had been to an elite private school. From there Tutte won a scholarship to university where he studied chemistry. He was aged only 24 when he arrived at Bletchley. His feats of deduction and analysis were extraordinary and have been described as a "miracle". Because the sheer quantity of data to be processed was overwhelming, Max Newman suggested that they try to build a calculating machine along the lines suggested by Turing. Turing took no other part in the Tunny project. Turing's first machine did not work very well and the successful machine, "Colossus" was built by Tommy Flowers. He was a Post Office telephone engineer from a working-class background. He used electric circuits and valves. Because all this work was top secret, even after the war ended, neither of them could talk about what they had done or get credit for it. Unlike Turing, these "unsung heroes" have no statues put up to them, because they are [[heterosexual]].[ref] http://www.computerweekly.com/video/Unsung-heroes-of-IT-The-story-of-Bill-Tutte-and-Tommy-Flowershttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1393587/Professor-Bill-Tutte.htmlhttp://www.stephenkettle.co.uk/turing. html
==Artificial intelligence==
In his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", Turing proposed a test (apparently heavily influenced by [[Logical Positivism]]) for establishing whether a computer could think, which he called the Imitation Game. This test, now known as the Turing test, is still widely considered to be the best test of whether a machine exhibits characteristics of [[artificial intelligence]].
==Sexuality and prosecution==Turing's reputation has been inflated by those who wish to glorify his as a "gay martyr". In 1952, when working as a mathematics don at [[Oxford University]] he went to the police and complained that a young man who had spent the night at his house had stolen a sum of money from him. The police questioned the young man, who told them that Turing had picked him up in a pub and taken him home for homosexual purposes, then illegal. This meant that the police had no choice but to prosecute Turing, who was not given a custodial sentence, but ordered by the court to undergo therapy for his homosexuality. A year later, he was found dead, which has been considered suicide. ==Deathand posthumous reputation==
Turing was found dead by his housekeeper on June 8, 1954.<ref>The housekeeper found him the morning after he had died</ref> The cause of death after an autopsy was determined to be cyanide poisoning; however, there was also a half eaten apple beside the bed. The apple was not tested for traces of cyanide.<ref name=hodges>Hodges, Andrew (1983). Alan Turing : the enigma. London: Burnett Books. ISBN 0-09-152130-0.</ref> Turing's death has been cause for much speculation, as parts of it seem accidental; for instance, the poisoning seems more consistent with inhalation than ingestion, leading some to believe that he accidentally inhaled fumes while sleeping from an apparatus of his set up in the spare room.<ref>Pease, Roland (23 June 2012). "Alan Turing: Inquest's suicide verdict 'not supportable'". BBC News.</ref> Some speculate that Turing let the accidental nature of his death happen on purpose, as a way to give his mother [[plausible deniability]].<ref name=hodges/>
On September 10, 2009, British Prime Minister [[Gordon Brown]] issued a statement to "celebrate" TuringThese events have been dramatized in Hugh Whitemore's "contribution play ''Breaking the Code'' and in the Hollywood film ''The Imitation Game'' both of which have contributed to Britain’s fight against the darkness growing myth of dictatorshipa " and to acknowledge that his prosecution was "appallinggay martyr" . The inaccuracy of that picture is measured by the fact that there were many Oxford dons in this period who were openly homosexual and "utterly unfair"no steps were taken against them. "I am pleasedThere were also many cases of heterosexuals committing suicide because of sex-scandals," Brown statedthe most famous being Dr Stephen Ward, "to have who was mixed up in the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to himProfumo affair. It has even been alleged recently that Ward's death was murder rather than suicide."<ref>http://www.number10telegraph.govco.uk/Page20571news/uknews/law-and-order/10488686/The-Profumo-Affair-It-was-decided-that-Stephen-Ward-had-to-die.html</ref>
Turing also became an [[Atheism|atheist]] after his friend Christopher Morcom died.<ref>[http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b2turing-alan-mathison.htm]</ref>
==See also==