The Life of Alan Turing
A timeline of brilliance and tragedy
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│ "Sometimes it is the people no one imagines │
│ anything of who do the things that no one │
│ can imagine." │
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1912
June 23: Born in Maida Vale, London, to Julius and Sara Turing. His father worked in the Indian Civil Service.
1918
Separated from parents at age 6, sent to England for schooling while they remained in India. A lonely childhood that shaped his independent mind.
1926
At 14, arrives at Sherborne School. On his first day, a general strike halts trains - he cycles 60 miles to school alone.
1928
Discovers the work of Einstein. Develops deep friendship with Christopher Morcom, a fellow student who shares his love of science.
1930
Christopher Morcom dies suddenly of tuberculosis. Turing's grief shapes his later thinking about mind and mechanism.
1931
Enters King's College, Cambridge, to study mathematics. Flourishes in the intellectual environment.
1935
Elected Fellow of King's College at age 22, one of the youngest in history, for his work on probability theory.
1936
Publishes 'On Computable Numbers' - the paper that invents computer science. Introduces the Turing Machine concept.
1936
Travels to Princeton to study under Alonzo Church. The collaboration shapes the foundation of theoretical computer science.
1938
Returns to Cambridge. War clouds gather over Europe.
1939
September: Reports to Bletchley Park the day after Britain declares war on Germany. Begins work on breaking Enigma.
1940
Designs the Bombe, an electromechanical device that dramatically speeds up Enigma decryption. Britain begins reading German naval traffic.
1941
Proposes to Joan Clarke, a fellow codebreaker. Later breaks off the engagement, confiding his homosexuality to her.
1942
Travels to America to share codebreaking techniques with the US Navy. Returns to lead Hut 8.
1943
Begins work on voice encryption (Delilah project) and continues cryptanalysis.
1945
War ends. Turing receives the OBE for his secret war work, though the public knows nothing of Bletchley Park.
1946
Joins the National Physical Laboratory to design the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine), one of the first stored-program computer designs.
1948
Joins the University of Manchester to work on the Manchester Mark 1, one of the world's first electronic stored-program computers.
1950
Publishes 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence' in Mind. Proposes the 'Imitation Game' - now called the Turing Test.
1951
Elected Fellow of the Royal Society for his 1936 paper. Begins work on mathematical biology and morphogenesis.
1952
January: Burglarized. Reports it to police, which leads to discovery of his relationship with Arnold Murray. Charged with 'gross indecency.'
1952
March: Convicted. Chooses chemical castration over prison. Continues working despite the hormonal treatment.
1952
Publishes 'The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis' - explaining how patterns form in biological systems. Revolutionary work.
1954
June 7: Found dead in his home in Wilmslow. Cyanide poisoning. An apple by his bed - half-eaten.
Legacy
Turing's work remained classified for decades after his death. The full scope of his contributions
to the war effort wasn't known until the 1970s. His theoretical work formed the foundation of computer science.
His question "Can machines think?" launched the field of artificial intelligence.
Today, the Turing Award is the highest honor in computer science - the "Nobel Prize of computing."
His face appears on the British £50 note. His ideas run in every computer, tablet, and phone on Earth.
He died believing his work might be forgotten. It was not.