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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAlan Turing killed himself 60 years ago yesterday.
It's 60 years since Alan Turing killed himself. In his lifetime he was almost unknown to the public yet today he's famous both as a pioneer of computing and as someone lacerated by 1950s attitudes to sexuality. But sisters Barbara Maher and Maria Summerscale can recall him as a family friend.
Alan Turing is commemorated by a statue in Bletchley Park
By Vincent Dowd
Witness programme, BBC World Service
When Alan Turing died of cyanide poisoning in June 1954 his death was not huge news. The story of how he and colleagues at Bletchley Park had cracked the German Enigma codes was still secret and the Turing name was not yet public property.
In a two-paragraph story reporting his death, the Times described how he had "helped to develop a mechanical brain which he said had solved in a few weeks a problem in higher mathematics that had been a puzzle since the 18th Century". It also noted his work on the Ace "automatic computing machine". A short obituary followed a few days later.
Turing had contributed to a couple of radio programmes on the BBC Third Programme (sadly now lost) but otherwise his wide-ranging work on artificial intelligence and morphology seemed the stuff of specialist journals.
His name emerged from the shadows in 1983 when Andrew Hodges published a well-received biography which inspired the play Breaking the Code. It played in London and on Broadway and was later adapted for TV. The public image of Turing as tortured gay genius was taking shape.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27701207
RKP5637
(67,089 posts)dickthegrouch
(3,170 posts)But for the grace of god...
MadrasT
(7,237 posts)malthaussen
(17,175 posts)I imagine Alan would be pleased. It is a scandalous shame the way he was treated, and a royal pardon for a corpse 59 years after the fact does nothing to make up for it.
-- Mal
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)and detractors ever could.
saidsimplesimon
(7,888 posts)were sworn to secrecy. Why should sexual preference matter after all these years?
Leith
(7,808 posts)- the world which would have rejected him. RIP, Alan. I wish you could have known then how we would come to respect you.
indepat
(20,899 posts)to thwarting Nazi world dominion, but please know the establishment's abomination of you for your lifestyle is too great to ameliorate the wrath that must befall you.