WEBVTT - Alan Turing: Codebreaker 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.760 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:13.680 Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.200 I'm far A Dowdy and I'm Deblina chokoate boarding, and 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:19.159 today we're going to be talking about Alan Turing. And 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:23.200 he's considered the father of computer science, the father of 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:27.560 artificial intelligence, and also one of the most important wartime 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:31.360 code breakers in World War Two. So quite a resume 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.479 just right off the bat there, and for listeners with 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.559 a more literary bent, he's also been called the Shelley 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:40.320 of science, which is a name I kind of took 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:42.479 a shine to you. Yeah, and others have too. He's 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.720 been a really popular podcast suggestion, though his resumes focus 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:49.440 on math and technology has always kind of scared us 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:51.600 off a little bit. I think, I mean things like 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:57.760 number theory, probability, computer programs, stung our usual subject matter stuff. 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:01.480 I'm I'm honestly a little scared to get into too deeply. 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:05.520 But fortunately some of his work really transcends the arcane. 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:08.720 It's it's understandable if you put some effort into it. 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:12.360 And there's a wealth of biographical materials to which I 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:14.600 feel like the last few podcasts I've done that has 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:16.600 not been the case, So it was a little it 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:19.360 was a little refreshing really to research Alan Turning and 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:21.920 know that there's so much out there about this man. 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:25.560 There are m I T lectures, there's a digital archive 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.839 at Alan Turing dot net. Their articles in just about 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.120 every science journal you can name, and there's a house 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.959 Stuff Works podcast. Yeah, Jonathan and Chris talked about Turin's 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:38.840 life less fall on tech stuff and so that's a 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:40.720 great place to turn if you want to a little 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.759 more of an in depth discussion on programming. Yeah, specifically, 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.760 I was glad though that even they admitted that the 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.000 math was kind of tricky to discuss. It's just so 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:55.000 high level. But they do really do a good job 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.400 covering the programming and in that side of Turning story. 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.680 But it's also June, which is Pride Month, and that's 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:05.720 why we've picked Turing for today's topic. He's a great, 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:10.160 if tragic example of a remarkable man, really a genius 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:14.480 whose life was so clearly defined by his homosexuality and 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.760 reminded me a lot of Oscar Wilde, who Katie and 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:20.600 I covered last year for Pride Month. He was another 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:24.920 man who was really destroyed by prejudice at the absolute 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:28.200 height of his achievement. So it's a great story to 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:32.240 learn about, and it's it's good to know about Turing's achievements, 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:35.320 but it is also a really, really sad story. Yeah 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:37.040 it is. But before we get to that, we're going 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.400 to start sort of with the beginnings of his life. 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:44.120 Alan Mathieson Turing was born June nine, twelve in London 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.240 to a member of the Indian civil service. His father 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:50.840 actually served in the Madrass presidency and his mother's father 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:53.880 was the chief engineer of the Madrass railways. But Turning 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:56.440 didn't grow up in India. Instead, his parents had the 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:58.840 kids fostered in British homes, which, as you can imagine, 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.600 was pretty lonely, and his parents didn't even come back 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.920 to England until nine. Yeah, not until his dad retired. 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:08.640 So he spent prep school trying to do as much 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.280 science and math as he could get away with, which 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:14.640 at the time it wasn't really the agenda. I guess 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.680 he would be an outstanding student these days, but his 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.600 skepticism and his curiosity also sometimes got him in trouble 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.480 with with the authority figures at school. But in nineteen 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:30.560 twenty eight, he had his first experience of true intellectual stimulation. 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.720 He made friends with a boy who was one year 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:37.720 ahead of him, Christopher more Cum and Jonathan and Chris. 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:39.880 The way they explained this, I really liked it the 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:44.080 way they explained the friendship. Essentially, the two kids could 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:46.880 bounce ideas off of each other and combine what they 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:50.080 knew and really come away from it with a deeper understanding. 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.440 So sort of a friendship of two minds that was 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.960 really influential in the young Turing's life. Yeah. So when 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.720 Marcum died suddenly in nineteen third, the teenage Churing was 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:04.960 left wondering what happened to Markham's consciousness. He was pretty 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.040 devastated and and wanted to explore that idea further. So 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:10.960 for three years he wrote letters to Markham's mother trying 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.280 to figure out the relationship between mind and matter. And 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.920 that's a quest that would later define his work and 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:19.159 artificial intelligence, which you're going to talk about a little 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:20.719 more in a few minutes. Yeah, I will definitely be 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:24.040 talking about that. But in October nine, so well, he's 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:27.360 really in the middle of his grief in and this 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:31.760 new look into the relationship between mind and matter. He 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:35.440 goes off to college King's College, Cambridge, and of course 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:39.200 he studies math, and it was really a different inspiring 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.080 environment for him to one where he could think creatively. 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:46.760 He could study things like philosophy and economics and surround 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:51.080 himself by intelligent people, and also recognized his own sexuality, 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:55.599 and he socialized with some of the anti war intellectual circle. 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:59.719 But his politics weren't really sharply defined during this period. 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.880 His in recreation was athletic. He liked running and rowing 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:07.080 and failing, and of course doing math. Yeah, by nineteen 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:09.800 thirty four he had received a distinguished degree, and by 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:12.719 nineteen thirty five, at age twenty two, he got a 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:16.800 fellowship to King's College. So well on this intellectual path 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.600 of his. But it was in nineteen thirty five that 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:23.720 Turing started tackling and intriguing mathematical question, and that's the 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:27.960 question of decidability. And during that process he envisions a 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:32.200 machine that could complete computational operations just like the human brain. 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:36.359 The Turing machine at that point was purely theoretical, but 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:38.799 it could perform any kind of operation that was programmed 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.960 to do play chess, calculate numbers, anything like that, and 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:46.280 that idea develops into the idea of a universal Turing 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:51.039 machine which could handle any task, and individual touring machine could. So, 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.239 for example, if the Turing machine is the early computer program, 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.719 the universal machine would be the early computer. The one 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:00.680 machine that can do any task is programmed to do. Yeah. 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:04.560 And a guy named b Jack Copeland described the significance 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.120 of this creation in an M I. T. Lecture. And 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.359 it really helped me understand how important it was because 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:13.480 it might seem a little old hat if you if 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.360 you just look at it like a computer or computer program, 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:20.160 he said. Nowadays, when nearly everyone owns the physical realization 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:23.680 of a universal turning machine, Turing's idea of a one 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.320 stop shop computing machine is apt to seem as obvious 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.679 as the wheel. But in nineteen thirty six, engineers thought 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:35.000 in terms of building specific machines for particular purposes. So 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.400 this was really a revolutionary idea at the time, and 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.279 of course some people realized that, but not everyone knew 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:46.039 the full implications of of what this idea would eventually 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:48.039 come to. Yeah, And it would be more than a 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.359 decade before the physical realization of a turning machine was 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:55.080 actually built. Until then, Touring continuing continued his studies at 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.760 Princeton and then returned to England and Cambridge before the 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.280 outbreak of World War two, and then on the first 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:02.560 full day of the war he joined the Government Code 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:05.280 and Cipher School, whose headquarters were at the now famous 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.760 Bletchley Park in London. Yeah, and the g CCS was 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.080 busy bringing together all of the country's top minds at 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.600 this point, so mathematicians like Touring, but also chess players 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:20.000 and egyptologists, all sorts of smart people with different kinds 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.679 of skills, anyone who they hoped might lend insight into 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:26.720 breaking German codes, which was what they were all about 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:28.800 in the chief Code at the time. The one that 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:32.680 was really giving them the most trouble was the Enigma, 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:36.640 and Polish Cryptanalysis had been working on the Enigma for 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.440 a really long time since nineteen thirty two, and they 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.400 had created a code breaking machine called the Bomba a 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.760 few years after that, but by nineteen thirty nine, Touring 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.480 and others were helping to create a new machine, one 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:52.440 that could adapt to the Enigma because it got to 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.680 where the Germans were changing the codes every twenty four 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:59.080 hours pretty much. So he helped develop a new machine 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:04.080 called the Bomb, which could DECIPHERLOFBAFA Enigma communications. There's a 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:08.760 really neat British Heritage article by Gene Paskey about Bletchley Park, 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.040 which I recommend if you just sort of want to 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:12.840 get a picture of it. We were actually talking about 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.640 this might be a good episode in itself, but I 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:19.120 hope we don't give too much away. It nicely describes 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:23.440 rooms full of these machines and the operators who maintain them. 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:27.320 And in case you think that they're little, tiny devices 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:30.400 like we're used to today, little electronic devices, they're not 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:35.000 in any sense like that. They are large mechanical machines 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:37.120 that required a lot of upkeep. They had to be 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:42.040 kept clean, um they were They took up the room essentially. 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.640 So these really big machines. They helped crack the Air 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.280 Force Enigma, but the German naval Enigma was kind of 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.560 a tougher nut to crack and also critical for winning 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:55.440 the Battle of the Atlantic. So Turing had worked out 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:57.640 part of the code in nineteen thirty nine, but the 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.400 big break in the situation came courtesy of a Royal 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:04.160 Navy when they captured an Enigma machine and code book 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.280 from a U boat, so by June one U boat 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.160 traffic was decipherable. Yeah, they have cracked the code, and 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:14.400 by early nineteen forty two, Bletchley Park was decoding thirty 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:18.080 nine thousand German transmissions a month, and of course some 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:21.800 of those were complaints about the underwear splitting down the 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:23.880 middle is in that type of thing, but also some 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:28.120 really serious communications in there. It rose to an eventual 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:33.760 eighty four thousand transmissions a month, so pretty astonishing figure. 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:37.240 And with the nineteen forty three breaking of Germany's high 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:41.920 level binary teleprinter code, which was what Hitler himself used, 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.880 and high members of his government Um Churchill, was able 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:49.800 to read Hitler's mail before Hitler could read it. According 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:53.800 to Posh's article, something I thought was interesting and something 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:56.520 I never knew about Bletchley Park, I mean neither. But 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.080 it turns out the combined efforts of Bletchley Park shortened 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.199 the war by two years, and for his part, Turing 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:05.240 received the Order of the British Empire, which was one 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:07.600 of the most prestigious awards you could get. Yeah, and 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.040 so after the war he's looking for a new job, 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.800 and he was recruited to the National Physics laboratory and 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:17.920 the task, conveniently enough was to design and build an 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:22.120 electronic computer, so essentially a real Turing machine. Seems like 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:24.280 just the guy to bring in to do this, And 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.840 he called his new design the Automatic Computing Engine, which 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:32.600 has the lovely acronym ACE. But it made a good computer, uh, 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:36.440 and it was a really ambitious advanced design it. If 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:38.559 it had been built, it would have had the memory 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:42.640 capacity of an early MAX So that's pretty astounding if 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:45.640 you consider this immediately after a World War two. Yeah, 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:48.880 but things moved more slowly than they had at Bletchley Park. 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.360 There was lots of red tape to deal with, and 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:54.800 Turing's colleagues thought that the original ACE design was too 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:57.559 much and opted for a smaller machine, which was called 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.079 the Pilot Model ACE. So part of the problem here 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:06.319 was that Turing's wartime achievements were unrecognized due to their secrecy. Yeah, 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.360 he couldn't go out and say, well, guys, at Bletchley Park, 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:12.160 I did this. I mean, he couldn't talk about any 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:14.959 of that stuff. Yeah, he couldn't brag on himself. So 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:18.280 to relieve the frustration and the stress of the situation, 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.720 he started long distance running and it took an injury 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:24.679 actually to prevent him from qualifying for the ninety eight 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:26.840 Olympic marathon team. So he was pretty good at it. 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:29.360 It's really good at it. It's it's one of those 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:31.520 I don't know, it's like a cherry on top for 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:33.959 somebody with so many talents that they would also be 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:35.760 an amazing athlete. Well, I was going to say, it's 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:39.960 almost not fair, but you're kinder than I am, obviously. Yeah, well, 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:42.640 whatever way you look at it. But by this point, 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:46.559 delays meant that the National Physics Laboratory wasn't going to 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.760 be the first place that built the first working electronics 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:55.480 stored program digital computer. That honor went to Manchester University 0:11:55.920 --> 0:12:00.839 and it happened in June. So Turing obviously frustrated by 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.880 his his time at the National Physics Laboratory, and they 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:06.360 got beat out. Yeah, they got beat out. He wasn't 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:11.720 really listened to his achievements, and accomplishments weren't really appreciated 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:15.320 to the the level they deserved to be. So he 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:20.400 went to work in Manchester, oddly enough as the deputy director, 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.480 even though there was no director of the program. Kind 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:27.160 of a strange little detail there. Yeah, but he designed 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:30.079 the programming system of the Ferronti Mark one, the first 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.800 commercially available digital electronic computer, so hopefully that was a 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:37.960 little solace for him. Consolation program yeah. Um. And it 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:40.959 was also during his time at Manchester that Turing started 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:45.679 to hypothesize about what would later be known as artificial intelligence, 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:48.240 and and I thought it was it was interesting, and 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:50.920 this is something that's kind of, I guess, difficult for 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.400 me to talk about with my limited knowledge of computer 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:57.160 programming and science. I just work on a computer. I 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:02.400 don't know what happens inside. But I was impressed that, Um, 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:06.199 even though he had he had the skill to work 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:09.560 on developing this field, he put the machine to use 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.040 right away. So I'm sure he was still considering about 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:14.360 how it could be advanced. But he started looking for 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.280 ways to use the Ferronti Mark one, which I thought 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:19.360 was was pretty neat. Yeah. It kind of went back 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.440 to his old interest in the connection between mind and matter, 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:26.520 and in nineteen fifty Touring wrote a paper called Computing, 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:30.160 Machinery and Intelligence in the journal Mind. In it, he 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:33.960 proposed something called an imitation test. Today that's called the 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:37.760 Turing test, and the test basically provided a way to 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:42.319 judge the intelligence of a machine without bias. So an interrogator, 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.480 for example, would sit in an isolated room from two subjects, 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.640 one a person, one a machine, and the interrogator would 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.600 ask them both questions, and if the interrogator couldn't tell 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:55.800 who was who, then that meant the machine was thinking. Yeah, 0:13:55.880 --> 0:14:01.040 it had intelligence in some definable way. And Turing even 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:03.800 predicted he had a lot of confidence in computers. He 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:07.280 predicted that by the year two thousand, a computer would 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:11.280 be so good at this game this, this Turing test, 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:15.360 an interrogator would not have more than a seventy percent 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.720 chance of correctly identifying who is who after five minutes. 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:23.360 And that is a very ambitious goal because according to 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:28.080 Encyclopedia Britannica, no computer today has even come close to 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:31.600 that standard. But Turing really he did have a lot 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:36.200 of hopes for computers. Yeah. He also hypothesized that one day, quote, 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:38.880 ladies would take their computers for walks in the park 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.560 and tell each other, my little computer said such a 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:43.800 funny thing in the morning. I think we're a little 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:47.440 closer to that one than the seventy percent goal. Maybe 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:50.800 I don't know. I still like my doggy though. Yeah. 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:55.040 So Turing continued to study artificial intelligence, but also stuff 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.200 like biological growth with the FRONTI Mark one I said 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:00.960 that he really did put that sheen too good youth, 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.360 and his career was expanding into these different subject areas 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:07.520 and his recognition was also growing. He was elected as 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.320 a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in March 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:13.880 nineteen fifty one. That's another really prestigious honor. He was 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:18.560 appointed to Readership in the Theory of Computing at Manchester, 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.880 which sounds like a very modern title. But in nineteen 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:24.840 fifty two things took a turn for the worse in 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.400 his life after a break in in his Manchester home 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.600 and he told the police that he thought the burglar 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.680 was probably connected to a man he was quote having 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:38.320 an affair with, and he had been pretty open about 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:41.840 his sexuality since college. During his Bletchley Park days, he 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.600 had proposed to a colleague, Joan Clark, but broke it off. 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.400 He told her that he was gay and couldn't marry her. 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:51.920 But being so frank with the police in this way 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.080 was really dangerous because at the time homosexuality was a 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:59.000 felony in Great Britain, and so Turing was tried and 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:03.440 convicted of growth indecency, and he was faced with a 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:07.720 really terrible choice. Yeah. His two choices were prison or 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:12.360 hormone injections of estrogen, so chemical sterilization. Yeah, and he 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:16.240 chose the latter and also lost his security clearance as 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:20.040 a result, So no government codes, no government computers. And 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.480 on June seven, nineteen fifty four, he was found dead 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.720 by his housekeeper with a partially eaten cyanide laced apple 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.120 by his side. Now, some have theorized that he was 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:33.440 assassinated as a security risk, but it's pretty much widely 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.880 accepted nowadays that Turing committed suicide, and even then right, 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:40.200 and it's also accepted that Turing did kill himself in 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:43.280 in this particular way so that it would allow his 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.560 mother to interpret the situation as an accident, since he'd 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:48.760 been working with cyanide and other chemicals in his work, 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:51.440 so she thought that he had some cyanide on his 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:55.000 hand and he ate an apple and accidentally poisoned himself. 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:59.360 But assuming he did commit suicide, which is what most 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:02.960 people have feel, it's a really tragic end to to 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:06.960 this great life. And and at the heels of this 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:11.640 terrible prosecution. So in two thousand nine, Prime Minister Gordon 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:15.560 Brown issued a formal apology for the British Government's treatment 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.360 of Touring, and I'm going to read just part of it. 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:22.240 He said, Touring truly was one of those individuals we 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.240 can point to whose unique contribution it helped to turn 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:27.479 the tide of war. The dead of gratitude he has 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.320 owed makes it all the more horrifying. Therefore, that he 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:33.440 was treated so inhumanely on the behalf of the British 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:36.640 government and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work, 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.840 I'm very proud to say we're sorry. You deserve so 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:43.080 much better. So two thousand twelve is Alan Turing Year, 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:47.119 and a stateside recognition has been long standing. The US 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.399 Association for Computer Machinery has given out the Touring Award 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:55.040 since nineteen sixty six, and if anything, as technology develops 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.360 in new areas of steady emerge, Alan Turing will probably 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:00.720 just become more recognized as the year's go on. Yeah, 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:04.680 if you think about how many career descriptions that apply 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.040 to his name, you know, father of artificial intelligence, that 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.720 sort of thing that didn't exist when he was alive. 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:13.880 We can only imagine that more will be added over 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:18.800 the years as science and technology advances. And we have 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:21.439 a lot of information about this kind of stuff on 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:23.920 our site, which we will tell you more about at 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:26.439 the end. But if you have anything to contribute on 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.320 this topic, you know anything else about Turion's research, or 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:31.600 maybe an anecdote about his life that we missed, please 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:34.639 write us at History Podcast at how staff works dot com. 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:36.560 You can also look us up on Twitter at mist 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:39.159 in history or on Facebook. And before we wrap up, 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:40.439 we thought it would be a good time to do 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:43.520 a little listener mail that has to do also with 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:50.000 a Battle of the Atlantic. We have a letter here 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:53.280 from Kate and she says, I just finished listening to 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:55.879 the sync the Bismarck podcast and wanted to share my 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:59.120 own tidbit from the story of the German battleship. Following 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:02.399 the battle, the h MS Cossack recovered floating on a 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:05.600 board a black and white cat from the Bismarck, renamed 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:08.600 Oscar and later unsinkable Sam. The cat went on to 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:13.640 serve on three Royal British Navy ships, surviving two more shipwrecks. 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:15.760 He was then retired from active duty and lived in 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.360 officers quarters in Gibraltar before being shipped to England, where 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.360 he lived the rest of his days. And she gives 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:24.760 us a link to a Wikipedia article that has a 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:27.920 portrait of Sam here. So thanks for that, Kate. That's 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:30.640 a very interesting tidbit. I looked at the picture. He's 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.480 the super cute cat. We always love pet stories here 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:38.880 at History that podcast. Yes, we're then us your pet stories, 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:41.920 especially they're historical because then they can turn into podcasts 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:44.720 every now and then, So send us your email at 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:47.840 History Podcast at how stuff works dot com. And again, 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:50.560 we also do have so many tech articles. You can 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:54.040 find them by visiting our website and just going right 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:57.040 to the tech tab and looking from there you'll find 0:19:57.080 --> 0:19:59.840 tons of stuff that interest you if you are in 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:04.680 to computer science or programming, or math or or anything 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:08.080 like that. All of it is on our website at 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:15.159 www dot how staff works dot com. Be sure to 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:18.000 check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:20.680 Join how staff Work staff as we explore the most 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:25.240 promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House Stuff Works 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.480 iPhone app has a ride. Download it today on iTunes.