61: Alan Turing, WWII Hero and Mathematical Genius

Today's episode is about the brilliant Alan Turing, the mathematician and logician that helped the Allies earn victory in WWII. Not only was he proudly gay in the 1950s, many of his ideas form the basis for modern computers and artificial intelligence. Join Morgan and Emileigh as they review the astounding and tragically brief life of one of the smartest people in human history. 

 

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Sources:

 

“The Man Who Cracked the Nazi Code” documentary on Amazon Prime (2018)

“Computer Scientist” by Paul Gray for Time Magazine (Mar 29, 1999)

https://web.archive.org/web/20071016225903/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990624,00.html

“Alan Turing: Father of the Modern Computer” by B. Jack Copeland & Diane Proudfoot 

https://www.rutherfordjournal.org/article040101.html

“The Alan Turing Law finally pardons thousands of unfairly convicted gay and bisexual men” by Pablo O’Hana (2017)

https://thetab.com/uk/manchester/2017/01/31/alan-turing-law-finally-pardons-thousands-unfairly-convicted-25615 

“Alan Turing’s ‘fearless approach to problems and intellectual curiosity’ praised” by PA News Agency (Jul 15 2019)

https://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/national-news/17771381.alan-turings-fearless-approach-problems-intellectual-curiosity-praised/

“Alan Turing’s court convictions go on display for the first time” by Todd Fitzgerald (Sept 24 2016)

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/alan-turings-court-convictions-go-11931942

“Better late than never, Alan Turing is finally pardoned” by Alex Stevenson (Dec 24, 2013)

https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2013/12/24/better-late-than-never-alan-turing-is-finally-pardoned/

“Alan Turing gets royal pardon for ‘gross indecency’ - 61 years after he poisoned himself” by Oliver Wright (Dec 23, 2013)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/alan-turing-gets-royal-pardon-for-gross-indecency-61-years-after-he-poisoned-himself-9023116.html

“What was Alan Turing really like?” by Vincent Dowd (Jun 6 2014)

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27701207

“Alan Turing’s Everlasting Contributions to Computing, AI and Cryptography” by René Peralta (Jun 23 2022)

https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/alan-turings-everlasting-contributions-computing-ai-and-cryptography

“Chia seedlings verify Alan Turing’s ideas about patterns in nature” by James R Riordon (Mar 26 2023)

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/seeds-alan-turing-patterns-nature-math

 

“Remembering Alan Turing: from codebreaking to AI, Turing made the world what it is today” by Liat Clark and Ian Steadman (Jun 7 2017)

https://www.wired.com/story/turing-contributions/?page=all

https://www.computerconservationsociety.org/resurrection/res102.htm#c

“Alan Mathison Turing, 1912-1954” by Maxwell Herman Alexander Newman (Nov 1 1955)

Obituary - Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbm.1955.0019

“Alan Turing: Inquest’s suicide verdict ‘not supportable’” by Roland Pease (June 26 2012)

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-18561092

“Alan Turing: Colleagues share their memories” (June 23 2012)

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18541715

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