Alan Turing

Alan Turing was born on June 23, 1912 and died on June 7, 1954. He was an incredibly smart computer scientist who is considered one of the founders of computers. He was an engineer, pioneer, and a mathematician. In 1939 he joined the United Kingdom's code breaking department, which is was the start of the second world war. During this time the Nazis were using a machine called the Enigma to hide the messages they were sending to each other about the war. No one thought these codes could be broken.

That all changed when Alan Turing joined the government. Along with some other geniuses, they were able to make a machine that could crack the Enigma code. He also had many other technological inventions that he invented during World War Two. For example he invented a system to disguise phone conversations and to decode private calls. In 1946 he made a design for the first digital computer that he called ACE (Automatic Computing Engine). In 1950 he began to focus more on computers being able to rival the brain of humans. He then published a paper called the Turing Test that compared human and computer outputs.

For More information

Go to this website for a timeline of Alan Turing's life.

This website has a detailed biography of Turing's life.

Here is another video about Alan Turing.

Works Cited

Biography.com Editors. “Alan Turing.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 21 Oct. 2016, www.biography.com/people/alan-turing-9512017#homosexuality-conviction-and-death

Jacobson, Rebecca. “8 Things You Didn’t Know about Alan Turing.” PBS, PBS, 28 Nov. 2014, www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/8-things-didnt-know-alan-turing/

Copeland, B.J. “Alan Turing.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online, Encyclopedia Britannica, 23 Feb. 2016, www.britannica.com/biography/Alan-Turing

This page was created by Jake and Ian.