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.

Did Travel Broaden Some of Britain’s Great Minds?

I love travelling. I am at my most creative when I have just come back from somewhere, or even when I’m waiting for a plane in a clean cut airport lounge. And the adage ‘travel broadens the mind’ is so inherent in our ‘Gap Year’ culture, we rarely even question whether or not paying 6 grand to STA Travel is going to publish us with an enlightened and insightful view of the world.

I believe that until I have seen more of the world, I cannot write about it with authority, or develop a complete political ideology. If I have never seen Tiananmen Square, or the Dharavi Slums, never walked the streets of Washington D.C, or set foot on African soil, how could I really know all that much? How could I make any lasting decisions on how to view the world, if viewing it from the porthole of a window that is South East England?

Historically, I am not alone in this feeling. A plethora Britain’s great thinkers took time out to ‘find themselves’. So, let’s answer a few questions like- where did Lord Byron go on his Gap Year? Who discovered the humble potato? Is travel really necessary to broaden our minds when we have access to the panorama of the Internet?

The first person to organise a round the world trip, before Thomas Cook opened on the high street, was Ferdinand Magellan, a Spaniard in search of good spices. This was in 1521. Even on this maiden voyage, things were discovered that were pioneering in 16th Century Science, such as the size of the Earth, making an International Date Line necessary that is still in effect today.

So how about the Brits?

A legacy of Exploration has given Britain a leading role in the discovery of new lands and knowledge. Adventurers like Mary Kingsley provided the first empathetic account of African tribal culture. Francis Drake carried out the first British voyage of discovery to the New World. Walter Raleigh introduced Britain to the potato. All of these early explorers where learning from travel like curious children asking questions. Can we go a bit further? Learn a bit more?

Then there are the creatives. Art and travel have always seemed intertwined. The Romantic Poets are a good example for this. Percy Shelley eloped with a different girl practically every week, to Europe, to Scotland. Travel was a Romantic tradition, and often discussed is the legendary Swiss retreat that the Shelleys went on with Lord Byron, on which they all wrote and Mary Shelley began ‘Frankenstein’. Byron, who went on the traditional ‘Grand Tour’ of the world from 1809-1811, wrote “With these countries, and events connected with them, all my really poetical feelings begin and end.” He surmises further, writing- “What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.” In short, one of Britain’s greatest poets doesn’t think he would have written if he had not travelled.

Popular Culture is not exempt from the ‘Travel Inspiration’ phenomenon. The Beatles perfected their craft in Hamburg. J.K Rowling finalised The first Harry Potter manuscript in Portugal. Even Prime Minister David Cameron took a pre-Oxford Gap Year in Hong Kong.

Travel in 2014 no longer means discovering the Americas, but Space. In a month where Europe has faced Economic troubles, talk of referendums and curbing immigration, it has also collaborated to land a spacecraft on a comet. Scientific discovery is the true golden egg in the exploration nest, and without the curiosity it takes to launch missions like this one, we would never make Scientific progress. And ultimately, isn’t that ability to look outside ourselves what makes us special as humans?

There is a line from the film Good Will Hunting that comes to mind, as said to the young genius-  “So if I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I’ll bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel.”
Well, I’m not sure how smelling the Sistine Chapel is helpful in life, but there’s definitely value in experience. An empathy perhaps, that has coloured the works of many great writers, and shaped the ideas of individuals. Inspiration to create something new. Or discovering something that you would never otherwise have found.