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Alan Turing The mathematician Alan Turing has become immortal through the expression 'Turing machine'. Many people must have used his name without any conception of his historical existence.
Who was Alan Turing?
Apart from being a mathematician he was a founder of computer science, philosopher, codebreaker, visionary, fellow of King's College (Cambridge) and a gay man. During WW2 he was a cryptanalyst at Bletchley Park, breaking the German Enigma cipher machine and designing the 'Bombes'. The first fully functioning electronic digital computer was Colossus, used by the Bletchley Park cryptanalysts from 1944. Colossus I used 1600 vacuum tubes, later models of Colossus contained 2400 vacuum tubes. Colossi were employed to break the code of the German Lorenz cipher machine which relayed messages between Hitler and his Wehrmacht generals. After the war, Alan Turing was involved in the development and design of early computers. He proposed a relatively complete specification of an electronic stored-program general-purpose digital computer in 1945. Had Alan Turing's computer been built as planned it would have been years ahead of other early computers. On June 7, 1954 he committed suicide. The 'Turing Machine'
In 1935 Alan Turing conceived the principle of the modern computer. He described an abstract digital computing machine consisting of a limitless memory and a scanner that moves back and forth through the memory, reading what it finds and writing further symbols. The actions of the scanner are dictated by a program of instructions that is stored in the memory. This is Turing's stored-program concept. Suggestions for work on the subject
1) Search the Internet for Alan Turing and reconstruct his life.
2) Name some more early computers. When was the 'IBM-PC' introduced? 3) Do you know some more computer pioneers? 4) Vaccum tubes and transistors either work as switches or amplifiers. Can you draw the basic circuit of an amplifier? 5) Who invented the transistor and when was it presented to the public? 6) Locate Bletchley on a map of the UK. 7) What was going on at Bletchley Park during WW2? Why was it so important? Recommended reading: 'Alan Turing the Enigma' by Andrew Hodges 'Codebreakers: The inside Story of Bletchely Park' by F. H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp 'Enigma' by Robert Harris 'Seizing of the Enigma' by David Kahn 'The Code Book' by Simon Singh 'The Hut Six Story' by Gordon Welchman | ||||
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