Alan Turing: short bio

(Alan Mathison Turing; London, 1912 - Wilmslow, United Kingdom, 1954) British mathematician. The first thirteen years of his life were spent in India, where his father was employed by the Colonial Government. Returning to the United Kingdom, he studied at King's College and, after graduation, transferred to the American University of Princeton, where he worked with the logician Alonzo Church.

Source: nationalgeographic.com

In 1937 he published a famous article in which he defined a calculating machine with infinite capacity (Turing machine) that operated based on a series of logical instructions, thus laying the foundations for the modern concept of algorithm. Turing outlined in exact mathematical terms how any type of mathematical operation represented in a certain proper language might be carried out automatically by a system with very simple rules. Turing's machine was both an example of his theory of computing and proof that a certain type of computing machine could be built.

The Second World War offered an unexpected framework for the practical application of his theories, when the need arose to decipher the coded messages that the German Navy used to send instructions to the submarines that harassed the material aid convoys sent from the United States; Turing, in command of a division of British Intelligence, designed both the processes and the machines that, capable of performing combinatorial calculations much faster than any human being, were instrumental in the final breaking of the code.

In addition to developing the theoretical Turing test, which was used to determine if a machine could think like a human, In addition, Alan Turing made contributions to other branches of applied mathematics, such as the use of mechanical and analytical techniques to address the biological conundrum of morphogenesis. On a personal level, his homosexuality was a constant source of strong social and family pressure, to the point of speculation whether his death from poisoning was accidental or due to a suicide attempt.

Source: phys.org

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