Alan Turing Saved 21 Million Lives In World War II, But History Punished Him For Being Gay

Computers today have truly made our lives a whole lot simpler. However, the computer that we use today, it always wasn¡¯t like this. Computers in the very initial stage of their lives didn¡¯t have graphical screens and user interface and they obviously weren¡¯t used for recreational purposes.

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They were used only for one thing -- calculations. And one man named Alan Turing was the one to create the world¡¯s first modern computer, that actually went on to save millions of lives during World War II.

A child with a stellar aptitude for science and mathematics

Alan Turing was born on June 23rd 1912 in Britain. Since an early age, he showed strong aptitude towards science and mathematics. Much like every genius, he loved coming across problems that were difficult to solve to find a solution to them.

After being an ace student during his schooling years, he went on to study at Kings College, Cambridge from 1931 to 1934 where he was awarded first-class honours in Mathematics. In 1936 he also published his paper ¡° On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem¡± where he proved that some decision problems are "undecidable": there is no single algorithm that infallibly gives a correct "yes" or "no" answer to each instance of the problem.

He displayed this with the help of a mechanical computation device that he called the ¡®Turing Machine¡¯ that eventually showed that it is not possible to decide algorithmically whether a Turing machine will ever halt.

He later went on to study at Princeton University in the US under the guidance of Alonzo Church from 1936 to 1938 where he attained his PhD from the Department of Mathematics at the aforementioned institution.

Breaking German codes, saving lives

Just before World War II began, he came back to the UK and continued working at Cambridge. He later got an opportunity to participate in a top-secret activity at the British Cryptanalytic Headquarters to crack German codes called Enigma. He worked with his team at Bletchley Park starting in September 1938.

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Alan, with his team, elaborated upon the early computer designed by Poles, working to break the German Enigma machine codes. This, along with Turing¡¯s stellar ability to understand patterns and codes, the team were able to break several other German codes, including the famous U-boat codes that basically ordered German submarine fleet to attack their enemies and destroy their resources.

With time, Germans became smarter with codes getting more complex. Turing¡¯s team at Bletchley Park created more complex machines to take down German communications. On average, they were solving over 80,000 encryptions every month.

His contributions not just shortened World War II by nearly two years, but it also saved millions of lives that had been lost either by German attacks or extension of the war period.

For his work during the war, Alan Turing was awarded the Order of the British Empire by the King -- which like his work was kept top secret for several years.

Turing and homosexuality

Turing was gay -- and this too at a time when being homosexual was considered as a criminal activity. One day, when he came home, he saw everything was out of place as if it was robbed. He called the police for registering the complaint, and during the investigation, they found out that he was a homosexual.

They arrested Turing and was put in front of the court. The judge offered him two options -- either go to jail or consider probation. He picked the latter, and as a part of probation, he was forcefully given hormone therapy (as at that time homosexuality was considered as an illness and this was considered as a cure). This took a severe toll on his wellbeing, by not only destroying his libido but also making him feel weak.

With his conviction, he lost his job at the secret facility, he was barred from working at any government facility and even his security clearance was revoked.

On June 8th 1954, he was found dead in the room with a half-eaten Apple besides him. While the cause of death was denoted as cyanide poisoning, they never really tested the apple. According to sources, he loved Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and his death was considered a reenactment of the death of Snow White.

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Apology and pardon by the British government

In August 2009, British programmer John Graham-Cumming raised a petition urging the British Government to apologise for prosecuting Turing -- a man that saved the entire nation from turning into ashes. On September 10, 2009, Prime minister Gordon Brown issued an official apology for acts done to Turing.

In 2011, William Jones and John Leech issued another petition requesting the British government to pardon him for his conviction of ¡®gross indecency.¡¯ While this request wasn¡¯t considered in the beginning, several dignitaries signed the petition including physicist Stephen Hawking. On 24 December 2013, Queen Elizabeth II signed a posthumous pardon for Turing's conviction for "gross indecency", with immediate effect.