Alan Mathison Turing
Alan Mathison Turing, (1912-54). British mathematician who contributed to the development of the computer. After graduating from Cambridge, he taught for several years at Princeton in the US. During World War II he made an important contribution to victory by deciphering the German Enigma codes, thereby giving the Allies advance knowledge of many Axis plans. Turing also carried out important theoretical work in the field of computability, mainly by devising a detailed characterization of an idealized computing machine (known as a Turing Machine), and using this as a criterion to judge whether or not a mathematical problem was decidable. After the war he put theory into practice at the National Physical Laboratory, where he supervised the building of the ACE computer. During his last years he taught at Manchester University, becoming assistant director of the automatic digital machine there. A homosexual, he com-mitted suicide after being charged with alleged public indecency.
