Alan Turing Research Paper
Alan Turing
“Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine, do the things no one can imagine.” – Alan Turing What story lies behind this quote? For me, it is not just a simple life story. It is the prideful story of the man who saved the world! So, now I’m going to talk about Alan Turing- founder of computer science, philosopher, mathematician, code breaker, and the culpable, guilty person of his time! Let’s begin! Alan Mathison Turing was born in England. He had signs of high intelligence since his childhood; especially he was interested in Science and Math. Because of the fact that he was smarter than others, his classmates always isolated him from their surroundings. The only …show more content…
person loved and respected to Alan was Christopher Morcom, with whom he met on the 6th grade. Unfortunately, their friendship didn’t last so long, only 2 years after Christopher died from tuberculosis and this event deeply affected Alan. After that event he continued working on code-breaking, math, science and he became completely involved in science in order to avoid his grief, but this involving in science led him to lose his faith and become an atheist.
But being an atheist was not only thing that Alan was blamed for. The unacceptable thing was that – Alan did not love Christopher only like a friend: He was homosexual and Chris was his first love. It was illegal at that time. Therefore, Alan had to hide this fact. He continued studying and at the end he received his PhD for mathematics and cryptology. Alan was teaching at a college, but when the World War II started, he enrolled to the Code-Breaking Organization in Bletchley …show more content…
Park. He did his best in terms of his profession to defeat the Germans. Alan invented a code-breaking machine which he named “Christopher”. This machine decoded Germans Enigma coding system, and left them defenseless during war. This invention made English be aware of Germans’ plans and 2 millions of people were saved due to Turing Machine- Christopher. Researchers claim that because of Alan World War II ended 2 years earlier. In addition, Turing machine was not the only code-breaking device; it was the initial form of computers that we use today. Alan Turing is the father of computer science, and also one of the main contributors of the victory in World War II. Despite all of the things he did, he was not appreciated, and only a little after the victory Government revealed the fact that Alan is a gay. He was arrested and forced to choose between hormonal therapy and imprisonment. Alan chose hormonal therapy, but it was really difficult process for Alan, and he could not bear it. After a few years, when Alan was just 42 years old, he poisoned himself with cyanide. In summary, Alan was not the person who had a great life and satisfactory childhood, but he sacrificed his life in order to help people willingly.
He was homosexual and atheist and it was unacceptable for that time, right, but what about his success? It is unacceptable, as well? For me, these qualities do not define anyone’s humanity. Humanity is the first, and everything that he did was done for the benefits of mankind. People judged him due to his personality and made him kill himself. It was not the thing that the guy who saved the millions of life had to deserve! Having unacceptable characteristics for most people, does not mean that you cannot be the man who saved the world! I think, we need to first consider the fact that, maybe just because of him history went differently; maybe just because of his ideas about computers we now have computers that sometimes even smarter than
us. Before considering the negatives, think about positives. Maybe it is somewhere in the deep, maybe it is in the place that you will never find, but truly, each person has “a good” in himself and each person deserves to be remembered.
References:
1. Quote by Alan Turing.Goodreads.com. Retrieved 08:30, Feb 19, 2015
From: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/87041.Alan_Turing
2. Alan Turing. (2015).The Biography.com website. Retrieved 08:34, Feb 19, 2015,
From: http://www.biography.com/people/alan-turing-9512017
3. The Turing Archive for the History of Computing. AlanTuring.net. Retrieved 09:05, Feb 19, 2015
From: http://www.alanturing.net/
“Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine, do the things no one can imagine.” – Alan Turing What story lies behind this quote? For me, it is not just a simple life story. It is the prideful story of the man who saved the world! So, now I’m going to talk about Alan Turing- founder of computer science, philosopher, mathematician, code breaker, and the culpable, guilty person of his time! Let’s begin! Alan Mathison Turing was born in England. He had signs of high intelligence since his childhood; especially he was interested in Science and Math. Because of the fact that he was smarter than others, his classmates always isolated him from their surroundings. The only …show more content…
person loved and respected to Alan was Christopher Morcom, with whom he met on the 6th grade. Unfortunately, their friendship didn’t last so long, only 2 years after Christopher died from tuberculosis and this event deeply affected Alan. After that event he continued working on code-breaking, math, science and he became completely involved in science in order to avoid his grief, but this involving in science led him to lose his faith and become an atheist.
But being an atheist was not only thing that Alan was blamed for. The unacceptable thing was that – Alan did not love Christopher only like a friend: He was homosexual and Chris was his first love. It was illegal at that time. Therefore, Alan had to hide this fact. He continued studying and at the end he received his PhD for mathematics and cryptology. Alan was teaching at a college, but when the World War II started, he enrolled to the Code-Breaking Organization in Bletchley …show more content…
Park. He did his best in terms of his profession to defeat the Germans. Alan invented a code-breaking machine which he named “Christopher”. This machine decoded Germans Enigma coding system, and left them defenseless during war. This invention made English be aware of Germans’ plans and 2 millions of people were saved due to Turing Machine- Christopher. Researchers claim that because of Alan World War II ended 2 years earlier. In addition, Turing machine was not the only code-breaking device; it was the initial form of computers that we use today. Alan Turing is the father of computer science, and also one of the main contributors of the victory in World War II. Despite all of the things he did, he was not appreciated, and only a little after the victory Government revealed the fact that Alan is a gay. He was arrested and forced to choose between hormonal therapy and imprisonment. Alan chose hormonal therapy, but it was really difficult process for Alan, and he could not bear it. After a few years, when Alan was just 42 years old, he poisoned himself with cyanide. In summary, Alan was not the person who had a great life and satisfactory childhood, but he sacrificed his life in order to help people willingly.
He was homosexual and atheist and it was unacceptable for that time, right, but what about his success? It is unacceptable, as well? For me, these qualities do not define anyone’s humanity. Humanity is the first, and everything that he did was done for the benefits of mankind. People judged him due to his personality and made him kill himself. It was not the thing that the guy who saved the millions of life had to deserve! Having unacceptable characteristics for most people, does not mean that you cannot be the man who saved the world! I think, we need to first consider the fact that, maybe just because of him history went differently; maybe just because of his ideas about computers we now have computers that sometimes even smarter than
us. Before considering the negatives, think about positives. Maybe it is somewhere in the deep, maybe it is in the place that you will never find, but truly, each person has “a good” in himself and each person deserves to be remembered.
References:
1. Quote by Alan Turing.Goodreads.com. Retrieved 08:30, Feb 19, 2015
From: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/87041.Alan_Turing
2. Alan Turing. (2015).The Biography.com website. Retrieved 08:34, Feb 19, 2015,
From: http://www.biography.com/people/alan-turing-9512017
3. The Turing Archive for the History of Computing. AlanTuring.net. Retrieved 09:05, Feb 19, 2015
From: http://www.alanturing.net/