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Alan Turing

Alan Mathison Turing was undoubtedly one of the greatest pioneers of our computer world.

We can clearly label him the founder of what we know today as modern computer science, but

beyond that, he was also a great mathematician, a code-breaker, philosopher, and certainly a risk-

taker. His contributions to society not only influenced the development of today’s computers, but

also seriously impacted the outcome of a second world war.

Born on June 23, 1912 in London, England to Ethel and Julius Turing, Alan Turing showed

very early signs of having an extraordinary mind. "At a very early age, he is said to have taught

himself to read in only three weeks and his discovery of numbers brought about the distracting

habit of stopping at every street light in order to find its serial number." 1 In school he proved to act

just as any other great mind has had in the past. He could not adapt and conform to the way in

which things were organized and put forth for him. He wanted to only follow his own rules and

standards. He did, however excel in mathematics, but for that matter, it was only that subject which

was of primary concern to him. Everything else seemed unimportant and therefore did not appeal to

his attention. He was definitely a good student, but inconsistent for the most point, and he “often

had to make up for poor classwork by getting high marks on exams held at the end of the semester”

(Henderson, 90). Nevertheless, he went on to college – King’s College of Cambridge University in

1931, and then later to Princeton University from 1936 to 1938.

The era of his college years was also in interesting period in the realm of mathematics.

Many things were and had been already changing. Mathematics was finding itself and it seemed

that its rules could be fully used to find the solution to any problem. Unfortunately a known

mathematician by the name of Kurt “Gödel, had proven that the axioms of...