Biography

When his homosexuality came to light, the British government gave him the choice of either jail time or chemical castration. He chose chemical castration.

He was posthumously inducted into the Cryptologic Hall of Honor in 2014.

Jack Copeland, a professor of philosophy, credited him with shortening the war in Europe by 2-4 years, and in the process saving 14-21 million lives. However this does not take into account the fact that the United States would still have developed atomic weapons by 1945. It also overlooks the Soviet contribution.

Turing's nephew Dermot, author of "Reflections of Alan Turing" and other titles relating to his uncle, said there was mythologizing about the mathematician's role at Bletchley. He said it was Polish code-breakers who provided the basis for the cracking of the German machine, and that unlike what was portrayed in the 2014 film "The Imitation Game", his uncle's Bombe creation was "in the hands of engineers by 1939 and delivered to Bletchley Park in 1940". He said, "It didn't work too well but by the time of the Battle of Britain they had a souped-up version. Turing's main work at Bletchley Park was done by 1939 before Britain was really at war.".

He was the uncle of Dermot Turing.

Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.

We are not interested in the fact that the brain has the consistency of cold porridge.

Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity.

We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.

Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.