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Alan Mathison Turing is born in London, England Image: https://www.ai-bees.io/post/alan-turing-the-once-obscure-father-of-computer-science -
Turing began studying mathematics at the King's College, University of Cambridge in 1931 and graduated in 1934. In 1935, Turing was elected Fellow of King's College in recognition of his research in probability theory. Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_College,_Cambridge#/media/File:Kingscollegearms_sodacan.svg -
Turing's paper “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the [Decision Problem]” is published. In his paper, Turing showed that the [Decision Problem] has no resolution--ending the hopes of discovering a formal system that would reduce mathematics to methods that humans could carry out. However, it was in the course of this work that Turing invented the Universal Turing Machine. Image: https://londmathsoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/1460244x/1937/s2-42/1 -
Turing moves to Princeton University to study under American mathematician Alonzo Church, who had published a paper reaching the same conclusion as Turing's “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the [Decision Problem]” under different methods. Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_University#/media/File:Princeton_seal.svg -
Turing's argument regarding the [Decision Problem] was the claim that everything humanly computable can also be computed by the universal Turing machine. Church in his paper used what he called lambda calculus, where calculations can be performed using a process of repeated substitution. Turing and Church showed that every lambda function is computable by the universal Turing machine and vice versa. This claim is now known as the Church-Turing Thesis.
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Turing returns to his fellowship at the King's College and joined the Government Code and Cypher School, moving to the organization's headquarters at Bletchley Park at the outbreak of WWII. Image: https://www.gchq.gov.uk/section/history/bletchley-park-and-wwii -
A change in German operating procedures with their Enigma encryption devices rendered Bletchley Park's Bomba decryption device useless. From fall 1939 to the spring of 1940, Turing and his group designed an Enigma-breaking machine called the Bombe. By 1942 Bombes were decoding 39,000 messages a month and by the end of WWII more than 84,000 per month--two messages every minute, day and night. Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#/media/File:Bombe-rebuild.jpg -
After the introduction of a more sophisticated cipher machine by the Germans, Turing devised a technique he called Turingery to iteratively codebreak the new encryption method. For his work, Turing was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turingery#/media/File:SZ42-6-wheels-lightened.jpg -
After the war, Turing began work on the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine) at the National Physical Laboratory and as part, presented a paper containing the first detailed design of a stored-program computer. However, with the Official Secrets Act protecting Turing's work at Bletchley Park, it was impossible for Turing to explain the details of some of his ideas--causing delays in starting the project.
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In "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" published in Mind, Turing proposed an experiment that could be used to determine if a computer actually possesses intelligence. This test is now known as the Turing Test. Image: https://medium.com/designerd/creative-vs-critical-thinking-2d10d28b0f6c -
Turing was convicted of "gross indecency" for being involved in a same-sex relationship and was sentenced to a year of hormone "therapy." His conviction would mean that he could never again work for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British government’s postwar code-breaking center, and he was barred from entry to the United States. Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/3D_Judges_Gavel.jpg -
Appointed to a specially created readership in the theory of computing at Manchester, Turing published “The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis” and performed groundbreaking resarch into the development of form and pattern in living organisms--using Manchester's Ferranti Mark I computer to model his hypothesized mechanisms.
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Alan Mathison Turing dies from cyanide poisoning at his home in Cheshire, England Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing_Memorial#/media/File:Sackville_Park_Turing_plaque.jpg -
Time Magazine names Turing as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating "The fact remains that everyone who taps at a keyboard [...] is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine." Image: http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19990329,00.html -
Queen Elizabeth II signs a pardon for Turing's conviction for "gross indecency" in 1952. Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_II#/media/File:Queen_Elizabeth_II_in_March_2015.jpg
