An English mathematician, logician and cryptographer, Alan Turing
was responsible for breaking the Nazi Enigma code during World War
II. His work gave the Allies the edge they needed to win the war in
Europe, and led to the creation of the computer. On the PBS
NewsHour tonight, Jeffrey Brown interviews Benedict
Cumberbatch about his role as Turing in The Imitation Game.
Turing took his own life in 1954, two years after being outed as gay.
Homosexuality was still a crime in Great Britain at the time, and
Turing was convicted of indecency. He died from eating an apple
laced with cyanide. He was only 41 years old.
At the time of his death, the public had no idea what he had
contributed to the war effort. Sixty years later, Queen Elizabeth
II officially pardoned Turing.
Andrew Hodges, a mathematician at the Mathematical Institute at
Oxford University, wrote the biography Alan Turing: The Enigma,
which inspired the film. We spoke with Hodges this week about some
things many people dont know about Turing.
Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images
1. He was an Olympic-level runner
He participated in a few sports, such as rowing, but he loved
running. Turing had a bit of a smelly trainers aspect to his
personality, Hodges said. To work it into his day, he often ran to the
places he needed to go. He used to run the 10 miles between the
two places where he did most of his work, the National Physical
Laboratory and the electronics building on Dollis Hill, beating
colleagues who took public transportation to the office.
He joined running clubs, becoming a competitive amateur and
winning several races. In 1948, his best marathon time was 2 hours
46 minutes 3 seconds only 11 minutes slower than the Olympic
winning time that year.
When one of his running club members asked why he trained so
vehemently, he replied, I have such a stressful job that the only
way I can get it out of my mind is by running hard.
2. He embodied some values of the Hippie movement
He was a hippie before his time, Hodges said. He was very casual
in those days, and thought very scruffy. Had he lived a few decades
later, he would have worn t-shirts and jeans every day, Hodges
added.
It wasnt uncommon to see Turing dressed rather shabbily, with
bitten nails and without a tie, he said. With his youthful face, he was
often mistaken for an undergraduate even in his 30s.
He also shared the left-leaning views of many of his Kings College
compatriots, who included economists John Maynard Keynes and
Arthur Cecil Pigou. Though Turing joined the Anti-War Movement in
1933, he never got deeply involved in politics. But watching Hitlers
rise to power in the late 1930s scared him, Hodges said, and it
spurred his interest in cryptography, which would later help Great
Britain in the war.
3. He got bad grades and frustrated his teachers
Science was a considered a second-class pursuit in English public
schools in the 1920s, Hodges said. Turings passion for science
embarrassed his mother, who had hoped he would study the
classics, which was the most acceptable pursuit for gentlemen.
But he got bad to mediocre grades in school, followed by many
complaints from his teachers. His English teacher wrote:
I can forgive his writing, though it is the worst I have ever seen,
and I try to view tolerantly his unswerving inexactitude and slipshod,
dirty, work, inconsistent though such inexactitude is in a utilitarian;
but I cannot forgive the stupidity of his attitude towards sane
discussion on the New Testament.
His math and science grades werent much better. He was nearly
stopped from taking the national School Certificate exams on the
subject, for fear he would fail.
Pilot ACE, 1950, is one of Britains earliest stored program computers and the oldest
complete general purpose electronic computer. It was based on plans for a larger
computer (the ACE) designed by the mathematician Alan Turing between 1945 and
1947. Photo by SSPL/Getty Images
4. The father of the computer also dabbled in physics,
biology, chemistry and neurology
Turings most notable work today is as a computer scientist. In 1936,
he developed the idea for the Universal Turing Machine, the basis for
the first computer. And he developed a test for artificial intelligence
in 1950, which is still used today.
But he also studied physics, especially as a young man. He read
Einsteins theory of relativity as a teenager, and immediately filled a
notebook with his own thoughts and ideas on the subject. He
dabbled in quantum mechanics, a new field at the time, as well as
biology, chemistry and neurology after the war. Much of this work
was related to creating machines that could learn and think, but
some of it came out of simple curiosity about the world.
5. He developed a new field of biology out of his
fascination with daisies
Even as a child, Turing saw life through the eyes of a scientist,
Hodges said. There is a famous sketch of Turing as a boy watching
the daisies grow while the other children play field hockey. That
sketch would foreshadow Turings ground-breaking work in 1952 on
morphogenesis, which became a completely new field of
mathematical biology. It was a mathematical explanation of how
things grow a great mystery to science, Hodges explained. His
work on the subject has been cited more than 8,000 times.
The subject of one of his seminal papers on the topic was
called Outline of the Development of the Daisy.
Sculpture of Alan Turing in slate at Bletchley Park. Photo from Wikimedia Commons,
taken by Jon Callas
6. He stuttered when talking
It is true that he had a bit of a stammer, something dramatic
portrayals of Turing have exaggerated, Hodges said. He took his
time finding the right words, he explained. In his biography he
notes that a BBC radio producer had called Turing a very difficult
person to interview for that reason.
7. He didnt keep his sexuality a secret among friends
The laws at the time prevented Turing from being openly gay, but he
never kept his sexuality secret either. He was open with his social
circles at Kings College in Cambridge, which was an oasis of
acceptance at the time, Hodges said. Many people would have
clung to that oasis, he said, but Turing branched out to continue his
work.
In 1952, he was arrested and charged with indecency after a brief
relationship with another man. Defiant, he did not deny the charges.
When he was arrested, the first thing he said was he thought that
this shouldnt be against the law, Hodges said. He gave a
statement that was unapologetic, that detailed what had
happened.
8. He refused to let a punishment of chemical castration
stop him from working
The punishment for homosexuality was chemical castration, a series
of hormone injections that left Turing impotent. It also
caused gynecomastia, giving him breasts. But Turing refused to let
the treatment sway him from his work, keeping up his lively spirit.
He dealt with it with as much humor and defiance as you could
muster, Hodges said. To his close friends, it was obvious it was
traumatic. But in no way did he just succumb and decline. He really
fought back by insisting on continuing work as if nothing had
happened.
He openly talked about the trial, even in the macho environment
of the computer lab. He mocked the laws absurdity. In defiance, he
traveled abroad to Norway and the Mediterranean, where the gay
rights movements were budding.
Homosexuality was considered a security risk at the time, and the
conviction cost Turing his security clearance. That was a harsh blow,
and Hodges believes that when he was restricted from leaving the
country anymore, it ultimately led Turing to suicide.
After hed been revealed as gay in 1952, he couldnt do any more
secret work, Hodges said. It would have been hard to accept that
he was not trusted.
