A Tribute to Alan Turing

 

A Tribute to Alan Turing

As we live in the world where even kids talk about virtual reality and artificial intelligence, have you ever wondered how did it all begin? Where was the pinnacle point of today’s technological advances? The world is flipped in our finger tips. How much personalized our gadgets has become that our virtual assistants knows us better than the person next to. If it weren’t for IT headway millions of students would be deprived of education in this pandemic. There is a hero behind-a brilliant man in the 20^th century who believed that machines could think, secluded from the rest of the people, who had to fight the ignorance that existed, Alan Turing-father of artificial intelligence and modern computer science.

Alan Mathison Turing was an English mathematician, computer scientist,logician, crypt analyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist born on 23^rd June 1912. He was hired by the British government to crack the ENIGMA code which was designed by the Nazi to have confidential communication with their allies. He calculated there would be 159 million million possibilities which would take 20 million years to work it down. The need of a powerful effective machine was obvious for which he dedicated his soul, he approached the elite members of the government to provide fund for his So called impossible machine. Though his colleagues were against him initially, they recognized his work was a child of art and brilliance. Finally ENIGMA was deciphered secret messages by his Turing Machine which reduced the World War II by two years, saving at least 14 million lives.  For political reasons the whole documents had to be burned, leaving it a secret that only a handful of people knew.

He was obsessed with the theory that he tried to improve everyday even after the war when everyone returned to their normal life. In the cursed era when homosexuality was  a crime Turing was forced to undergo hormonal therapy, which made him vulnerable and depressed which ended up in a suicide at the age of 41, or rather a murder by an unscientific social laws.

For the facilities we enjoy today he had to sacrifice his entire life. His grandeur was never recognized until late. His efforts were never acknowledged enough. For 50 years his work remained political secret. In 2013 Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a posthumous royal pardon, honouring his unprecedented achievements. Turing’s work inspired generations of research into what scientists called “Turing machine”. Today we call them Computer.

Life was never kind to that legend, so were we. Every generation born and yet to be born owes an apology to have humiliated him to death, To have left him unappreciated. So as I type the story of an uncrowned war hero my head falls in shame for living in a world that denied him life which wouldn’t have existed if it wasn’t for him.

Reference: The Imitation Game (Movie 2014)

Written by: Rinshad