Alan Turing was a famed
mathematician and the most important person in field of computer science. He
was born in London, England and since a child he displayed signs of high
intelligence and early demonstrated interesting in math and science. After high
school, he enrolled at University of Cambridge where he proved the central limit theorem and he was elected a fellow at the school
upon his graduation.
In 1936 he
developed a research about computable numbers and developed the universal
machine (later called “Universal Turing Machine”), a machine capable of
computing anything that is computable, which is the base for begin of the
computer and modern computers. He also studied mathematics and cryptology at
Princeton where he received his Ph.D.
As result of his
study in cryptology, he contributed with the England Army code breaking the
German ciphers during World War II. He also wrote two papers about mathematical
approaches to code-breaking.
In 1940 he was
ranked in the best mathematicians. He first addressed the issue of artificial
intelligence in his 1950 paper, "Computing machinery and
intelligence," and proposed an experiment known as the “Turing Test”—an
effort to create an intelligence design standard for the tech industry. Over
the past several decades, the test has significantly influenced debates over
artificial intelligence.
For being a
homosexual (homosexuality was banned in the UK at that time), he was sentenced
to prison. Avoiding the prison, he opted for an alternative sentence, where he
spent one year taking estrogenic to decrease his libido. After much pressure
and he be moving away from office, he committed suicide around 1952.
Source: http://www.biography.com/people/alan-turing-9512017#early-life
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