Alan Turing- A War Against Ignorance

I will prefix this post by saying that if you can, go and see ‘The Imitation Game’, a biopic on Alan Turing. It is inspirational, devastating, and most incredibly, a true story.

Alan Turing was a mathematician. In 1936, as a Cambridge graduate, Turing published ‘On Computable Numbers, With An Application To The Entsheidungsproblem’. (That’s decision problem in German). This paper put forward the notion of a ‘Universal Machine’, a machine that could be used to compute any computable sequence. The idea for the modern computer was born.

Turing got the chance to build on this thesis while at Bletchley Park, the British War time base of code breaking. The focus at Bletchley was cracking the German Enigma machine, which Turing relished tackling “because no one else was doing anything about it and I could have it to myself.” Turing worked alongside Hugh Alexander, who said that Turing’s mind and unique drive was largely to thank for the success of the project- “The pioneer’s work always tends to be forgotten when experience and routine later make everything seem easy and many of us in Hut 8 felt that the magnitude of Turing’s contribution was never fully realised by the outside world.”

Like many intellectuals, Turing was eccentric in character. Known around Bletchley simply as ‘Prof’, Turing rode his bike wearing a gas mask to avoid hay fever, frequently jogged all the way to London, and even “chained his mug to the radiator to prevent it from being stolen”- Jack Good, Bletchley Cryptanalyst.

Turing’s work at Bletchley, and outside of the war, shows a pioneering drive seen only in the rarest of individuals. He was not hugely political, his central motivator was discovery and innovation. Purely through creation of a new machine, a new idea, Turing shortened the second world war by an estimated 2 years, thus saving roughly 20 million lives. His name stands alongside that of Churchill as a war time hero.

The story of Alan Turing’s life does not have a happy ending. It is a story of one battling with big questions, determined to make the future a better place than the past. However, Turing was also at war with ignorance, firstly the evil of the Nazis, and then the evil of his own country. It is rare for one person, one mind, to be truly instrumental in saving a country from destruction, but Turing is such a figure. Being a good person, being a brilliant person, did not save him from the base human ignorance and hate that leads to prejudice. In 1952, a short 7 years after Turing’s heroic war effort, he was arrested for gross indecency. Turing refused to be ashamed or lie about his homosexuality, and claimed ‘guilty’ in court only on the advice of his family. He was defiant until the end. Preferring to continue his work, he turned down prison and instead accepted injections of a synthetic oestrogen (this is known as chemical castration). This, in a country that had just spent years denouncing the shameful sterilisation of Jews by the Nazis.

Turing’s work was greatly affected by the rumours of his homosexuality, and he was cut from certain circles. Such a ruling was not spoken about in those days, despite police actively persecuting homosexuals at the time. Two years after the ruling Turing killed himself, cyanide poisoning. A half eaten apple was found by his bedside, perhaps an allusion to the poison apple of Snow White. The scientific community published heartfelt obituaries, but his work at Bletchley was unknown and his homosexuality had darkened his name. Turing was lost in history, just another victim of blind prejudice.

It is only recently that Turing’s name has emerged as the founder of the modern computer, the hero of WW2, gay icon. The Queen posthumously pardoned Turing in 2013. However, like many people throughout history, it is too late for Turing. His unknowable contribution to winning the war and beyond that, in scientific development, directly affected all of our lives. It just goes to show that prejudice, discrimination, ignorance, and hate paint in broad and thoughtless strokes. We must continue to fight for equality in all areas, so that there are less stories of great people, doing good things, and being punished for the simple act of being who they are.