Alan Turing

Also known as Alan M. Turing, Alan Mathieson Turing, Turing, Alan Mathison Turing

English computer scientist (1912–1954)

AI overview

Alan Turing was an English computer scientist who lived from 1912 to 1954 and made foundational contributions to the theory of computation and artificial intelligence. His work, including the development of the Turing machine concept, helped establish the mathematical foundations of modern computing and remains central to computer science today.

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Digital CipherCopy Presents DIGITIZED WRITING SOLUTIONS
Alan Turings Code Games for Kids

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Quotes

“Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity. The activity of the intuition consists in making spontaneous judgements which are not the result of conscious trains of reasoning... The exercise of ingenuity in mathematics consists in aiding the intuition through suitable arrangements of propositions, and perhaps geometrical figures or drawings.”
“Instruction tables will have to be made up by mathematicians with computing experience and perhaps a certain puzzle-solving ability. There need be no real danger of it ever becoming a drudge, for any processes that are quite mechanical may be turned over to the machine itself.”
“A man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline, is in effect a universal machine.”
“There is a remarkably close parallel between the problems of the physicist and those of the cryptographer. The system on which a message is enciphered corresponds to the laws of the universe, the intercepted messages to the evidence available, the keys for a day or a message to important constants which have to be determined. The correspondence is very close, but the subject matter of cryptography is very easily dealt with by discrete machinery, physics not so easily.”
“This is only a foretaste of what is to come, and only the shadow of what is going to be. We have to have some experience with the machine before we really know its capabilities. It may take years before we settle down to the new possibilities, but I do not see why it should not enter any one of the fields normally covered by the human intellect, and eventually compete on equal terms.”
“Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.”

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Wikidata facts

Official website: www.turingarchive.org
Image: Alan Turing (1912-1954) in 1936 at Princeton University.jpg

Show 10 more facts

birth name: Alan Mathison Turing
Commons category: Alan Turing
date of death: 1954-06-07
date of birth: 1912-06-23
Commons gallery: Alan Turing
Erdős number: 5
name in native language: Alan Mathison Turing
described at URL: heritage.humanists.uk/alan-turing
date of burial or cremation: 1954-06-12
P8168: Hyposmocoma cuprea

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Article

Alan Mathison Turing (/ˈtjʊərɪŋ/; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. He was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science.

Born in London, Turing was raised in southern England. He graduated from King's College, Cambridge, and in 1938, earned a doctorate degree from Princeton University. During World War II, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre that produced Ultra intelligence. He led Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. Turing devised techniques for speeding the breaking of German ciphers, including improvements to the pre-war Polish bomba method, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine. He played a crucial role in cracking intercepted messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Axis powers in the Battle of the Atlantic and other engagements.