Essay: Alan Turing

Alan Mathison Turing, a 20th century mathematician is commonly known as the father of modern computing. Born June 23, 1912 in Maida Vale (a residential area in London), England. Before his death in 1957, Turing would make some of the greatest mathematical breakthroughs in the technological age. His discoveries would go beyond computing alone and would lay important groundwork for the exploration into artificial intelligence.
Even as a child Turing’s intelligence was clear. He was a math oriented student who frustrated his teachers by “getting high marks on his exams despite paying little attention in class” (British Library) though one of his math teachers proclaimed him to be a genius. In his primary school days, he was somewhat limited in what he could study. His school’s curriculum had a heavier basis in the humanities and arts rather than in math. Turing’s headmaster said “if he is solely to be a Scientific Specialist, his is wasting his time at public school” (BBC.com). To satisfy his own curiosity, young Turing studied on his own, far surpassing anything they were teaching in his school curriculum.
The death of one of Turing’s classmates, Christopher Morcom in 1930 impacted Turing and broadened his interests further than math alone. Turing was attracted to Christopher and they became close. Christopher helped bring Turing out of his shell and helped Turing increase his social skills. After Christopher died suddenly of tuberculosis, a devastated Turing began to wonder about the mind/brain. He wanted to believe that Christopher’s consciousness lived on and this led to Turing’s fascination with artificial intelligence. Later in life Turing’s homosexuality would cause him serious legal trouble.
In 1931 Turing attended Cambridge University to study mathematics. At Cambridge Turing was able to focus more on his true passion, mathematics, and he flourished. He graduated from Cambridge in 1934 with honors. Then in 1936, Turing went on to earn his PhD in mathematics at Princeton University in New Jersey.
He became fascinated with the idea of a ‘Universal Machine’ that could compute any kind of calculation, even ones that were too complex to be done by hand. It eventually became known as the Turing Machine, though it was less of an actual physical machine and more of a hypothetical mathematical model.
In 1936 Turing published a paper called “On Computable Numbers, With An Application to the Entscheidungsproblem” in which he outlined his invention which later became known as the Turing Machine. 10 years after publishing his paper Turing converted the hypothetical program into a comprehensive plan that could be applied to an electric computer and would enable it to perform calculations. The Turing Machine values of ones and zeros and blank spaces to perform complex calculations.
In addition to the creation of the Turing Machine, Alan Turing also had in interest in Artificial Intelligence. In 1950 Turing wrote a paper entitled Computing Machinery and Intelligence in which he outlined something that would come to be known as the Turing Test. In essence, the test was designed to see if a machine could convince a human that it was also a human. In simplest terms the Turing Test puts a human against a computer. Another human, who can’t see the computer or the human, has to decide which the human is. To pass the Turing Test would mean that a machine is truly artificially intelligent.
Turing’s innovations and discoveries have made lasting impacts to computer science and technology as a whole. To this day no machine has passed the Turing Test. Turing’s paper, Computing Machinery and Intelligence is still considered a must-read for those interested in artificial engineering. The Turing Machine was revolutionary in its time and played a huge part in the progression of computer science. Without Turing it probably would have taken decades longer for the idea of a computational device to come about. A comprehensive test for true artificial intelligence also might not have been created.
Turing made contributions to different aspects of science. He cracked the Nazi Enigma code, influenced the future of computer programming, and created a test for calculating true artificial intelligence. Turing overcame adversity and bigotry and made groundbreaking discoveries. For all of these reasons and more, Alan Turing can be considered one of, if not the most, influential people in computer science.
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