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Alan Turing: Pioneer of Computer Science

Alan Turing was a pioneering English mathematician and computer scientist. During World War II, he helped break German codes by designing the bombe, an electromechanical machine that helped decrypt messages faster. He later studied artificial intelligence and proposed the Turing test to evaluate machine intelligence. Turing made seminal contributions to computer science through his work on algorithms, computation, and artificial intelligence, but he committed suicide after being criminally prosecuted for his homosexuality.

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53 views2 pages

Alan Turing: Pioneer of Computer Science

Alan Turing was a pioneering English mathematician and computer scientist. During World War II, he helped break German codes by designing the bombe, an electromechanical machine that helped decrypt messages faster. He later studied artificial intelligence and proposed the Turing test to evaluate machine intelligence. Turing made seminal contributions to computer science through his work on algorithms, computation, and artificial intelligence, but he committed suicide after being criminally prosecuted for his homosexuality.

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Thomas Boyer

8/25/2011
Alan Turing
-Born on June 23, 1912(Same birthday as me) in London, England
-He was an English Mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer science
-He formalized the concept of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine after getting his
degree in Mathematics
-A Turing machine is a formal and simple arithmetic based device that can perform any
conceivable mathematical computation if it were representable as an algorithm.
-He also stated that such a machine would be able to mimic or perform the task of any other
machine.
-He later studied the use mechanical binary logic and its use in cryptology.
-During WWII he was head of the English organization studying to break the Enigma, or German
naval code. Turing wanted to break the code faster and more accurately. He designed and built
the bombe, which uses an electromechanical mechanism to flow through a logical algorithm and
deduce the rotors and settings of a U-boats Enigma encoder. By the end of the war over 200
were up and running.
-Further building on his on algorithms and logic he went on to study Computing machinery and
intelligence in the issue of Artificial Intelligence. He designed and proposed the Turing test.
-The Turing test defines what it means for a machine to be truly intelligent. A human
interrogator must converse with a machine and differentiate it from a human being. This is
shown in many modern day science fiction movies such as Blade Runner.
-A similar test is the modern Captcha test to discern if a human is downloading or registering on
a site, in contrast to roaming web bots or spiders.
-His efforts in the military were kept secret, and would later lead to his death.
-In Britain it is illegal to have homosexual relations. Turing reported a break in of one of his
partners to the police, but acknowledged illegal homosexual acts. He was given a choice
between imprisonment and chemical castration and estrogen hormone injection.
-He agreed to take the chemical treatment, but later ended up committing suicide by
Cyanide pills two years later.

-These contributions set forth modern studies on the applications and developments of modern day
Computer Science, including security, cryptology, algorithms, programming, processor design, and
artificial intelligence.

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