60 Fun Facts About Alan Turing

What was the codename for intelligence produced at Bletchley Park?

The centre was the wartime home of the Government Code and Cypher School, and Turing reported there the day after war was declared.

Which section of Bletchley Park, responsible for German naval cryptanalysis, did Turing lead?

He picked the naval problem, he said, "because no one else was doing anything about it and I could have it to myself".

What electromechanical codebreaking machine did Turing specify soon after reaching Bletchley?

Its name came from the Polish bomba kryptologiczna it improved on; the first one was installed on 18 March 1940.

Which mathematician's enhancement made the bombe a primary Bletchley tool against Enigma?

The diagonal board he added let the machine rule out far more rotor settings per run.

On what date did Turing report to Bletchley Park, the day after Britain declared war on Germany?

Like everyone there he signed the Official Secrets Act, which kept his war work secret for decades.

What statistical procedure did Turing devise to make more efficient use of the bombes against naval Enigma?

He conceived it the same night in December 1939 that he solved the naval indicator system, and invented a unit of evidence called the ban.

Turingery, devised in 1942, was a method for attacking which German cipher machine, codenamed Tunny?

It worked out the cam settings of the machine's wheels; Turing was not, despite the myth, involved in building Colossus.

Turing's late-war portable voice scrambler, built at Hanslope Park, had what codename?

He demonstrated it by encrypting and decrypting a recording of a Churchill speech, but it was finished too late to be used.

What was Turing's nickname among his Bletchley Park colleagues?

His treatise on Enigma was accordingly known as the "Prof's Book".

Why did Turing cycle to work at Bletchley in a service gas mask each June?

He also chained his mug to the radiator pipes to stop it being stolen.

To whom did Turing and three colleagues write in October 1941 asking for more staff and bombes?

The reply to General Ismay was headed "ACTION THIS DAY", and the rough ways "began miraculously to be made smooth".

Roughly how many bombes were in operation by the end of the war?

The Americans planned to build 336 of their own, one per wheel order, an idea Turing privately found faintly absurd.

By how much did Harry Hinsley estimate Bletchley shortened the war in Europe?

He added that this did not account for the atomic bomb and other eventualities.

Which honour did King George VI give Turing in 1946 for wartime services that remained secret for years?

A memo after the war reminded everyone at Bletchley that the code of silence would continue indefinitely.

What is the title of Turing's 1936 paper that introduced the machines now named after him?

It has been called "easily the most influential math paper in history" and proved the halting problem undecidable.

Which German mathematician originally posed the Entscheidungsproblem, or decision problem, in 1928?

Turing showed no algorithm could solve it, publishing shortly after Alonzo Church reached the same conclusion via the lambda calculus.

Under which logician did Turing study at Princeton, where he earned his PhD in 1938?

His dissertation, Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals, introduced the idea of machines with "oracles".

Which Cambridge college elected Turing a Fellow at 22 for his central limit theorem dissertation?

Unknown to him, Jarl Waldemar Lindeberg had already proved the same version of the theorem in 1922.

Which independent boarding school in Dorset did Turing attend from the age of 13?

On his first day, during the 1926 General Strike, he cycled 60 miles from Southampton unaccompanied to get there.

Who was the school friend described as Turing's first love, whose death in 1930 devastated him?

He died of bovine tuberculosis weeks after they had sat scholarship exams together at Trinity College, Cambridge.

In which part of London was Turing born on 23 June 1912?

A blue plaque marks the nursing home, which later became the Colonnade Hotel.

Turing's father was on leave from which employer when Alan was born?

His parents shuttled between India and Hastings, leaving the two boys with a retired Army couple.

Whose 1939 Cambridge lectures on the foundations of maths did Turing attend and argue with?

Turing defended formalism while the lecturer insisted mathematics invents its truths rather than discovering them.

What stored-program computer did Turing design at the National Physical Laboratory in 1946?

The Pilot ACE ran its first program in May 1950, but the full version was not built in his lifetime.

Which university's Computing Machine Laboratory did Turing join in 1948?

He wrote the first Programmer's Manual for the machine and consulted for Ferranti until his death.

In which 1950 paper did Turing propose the experiment now known as the Turing test?

A reversed form of the idea is used every day online: the CAPTCHA, which checks whether a user is human.

What was the chess program Turing wrote with Champernowne called?

Unable to run it on the Ferranti Mark 1, he executed it by hand from the pages of the algorithm, about half an hour per move.

Which colleague beat Turing's hand-run chess program in its recorded game?

It is said the program did win a game against Champernowne's wife, Isabel; Garry Kasparov called it "a recognizable game of chess".

What mechanism did Turing's 1952 'The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis' propose to explain patterns in living things?

It predicted oscillating chemical reactions like the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, first observed in the 1960s, and helps explain spots on cats.

What did a 2023 experiment grow to confirm Turing's pattern hypothesis in vegetation?

Researchers adjusted the moisture in even layers of seed and watched natural-looking patterns emerge.

Which sport was Turing good enough at to try out for the 1948 British Olympic team?

His tryout time was only 11 minutes slower than the Olympic silver medallist's; he sometimes ran the 40 miles to London for meetings.

What did Turing buy and bury near Bletchley Park to protect his savings from a German invasion?

He later could not break his own code describing where he had hidden them, and never recovered them.

Which Hut 8 colleague did Turing propose to in 1941, before breaking off the engagement?

She was reportedly "unfazed" by the revelation, but he decided he could not go through with the marriage.

What was the rule of Turing's invented sport, round-the-house chess?

The other player had to move before the runner returned, decades before chess boxing was invented.

What crime was Turing charged with in 1952 under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885?

The investigation began after he reported a burglary at his Wilmslow home and acknowledged a relationship with Arnold Murray.

Which synthetic oestrogen was Turing injected with as the "chemical castration" term of his probation?

The drug, now known as DES, rendered him impotent and caused breast tissue to form.

Which more tolerant country did Turing visit in summer 1952 after being barred from the United States?

The authorities intercepted a postcard from a man he met there, Kjell Carlson, and deported him before they could meet.

What was found half-eaten beside Turing's bed when he was discovered dead on 8 June 1954?

It was never tested for cyanide; biographers have noted his fondness for the poisoned-apple scene in Snow White.

What alternative cause of death has philosopher Jack Copeland proposed for Turing?

Turing kept an apparatus for plating gold onto spoons in his spare room, using potassium cyanide to dissolve the gold.

Which British prime minister issued a public apology in 2009 for the "appalling" way Turing was treated?

It followed a petition by programmer John Graham-Cumming that gathered more than 30,000 signatures.

On what date did Queen Elizabeth II sign a royal pardon for Turing's conviction?

It was only the fourth royal pardon granted since the end of the Second World War.

Which MP for Withington led the campaign for Turing's pardon and is called architect of the 'Alan Turing law'?

The 2017 law went on to secure pardons for some 75,000 other men and women.

Turing's portrait appears on which Bank of England banknote, first issued on his birthday in 2021?

The same year, a 2019 BBC audience vote had already named him the greatest scientist of the 20th century.

Who plays Turing in the 2014 film The Imitation Game?

The film's title quotes the name of the game Turing proposed for answering "Can machines think?"

Which Academy Award did The Imitation Game win from its eight nominations?

It grossed over $233 million on a $14 million budget, the highest-grossing independent film of 2014, despite heavy criticism of its historical accuracy.

Who wrote the 1983 biography on which The Imitation Game was based?

He is also the biographer who theorised that Turing staged his death to look accidental to spare his mother.

How much prize money has accompanied the ACM Turing Award, the "Nobel Prize of Computing", since 2014?

Google provides the funding; between 2007 and 2013 the prize was $250,000, backed by Intel and Google.

How did the 13-year-old Turing get to his first day at Sherborne School during the 1926 General Strike?

He stopped overnight at an inn on the way; his headmaster later warned he risked 'falling between two stools'.

Which 1922 book did Turing credit with opening his eyes to science?

Edwin Tenney Brewster's book reached him at ten; by 16 he was grasping Einstein's work unaided.

Turing's mother Ethel came from an Anglo-Irish family; her father was chief engineer of which railway?

His parents married in Dublin in 1907 and chose to raise their sons in Britain rather than India.

Which German computing pioneer did Turing meet at a 1947 colloquium in Göttingen?

Physicist Heinz Billing recorded the meeting in his memoirs; Turing's colleague Womersley also attended.

The Pilot ACE, built from Turing's design in his absence, ran its first program on what date?

Later computers including the English Electric DEUCE and the American Bendix G-15 owe much to it.

Which company paid Turing consultancy fees until his death for work on its commercial Mark 1 computer?

He also wrote the first Programmer's Manual for the Manchester Mark 1.

What everyday internet security check is described as a reversed form of the Turing test?

Turing suggested simulating a child's mind and educating it, rather than programming an adult mind directly.

What was the name of Turing's house at 43 Adlington Road, Wilmslow, where he died?

His housekeeper found him there on 8 June 1954; his remains were cremated at Woking two days after the inquest.

Biographers suggest Turing's death re-enacted a scene from which film, his favourite fairy tale?

He reportedly took a keen pleasure in the scene where the Wicked Queen dips her apple in the poisonous brew.

Which London dining society for cybernetics researchers invited Turing to join at its first meeting in 1949?

He gave his introductory talk in April 1950 and later spoke on both his Turing test and morphogenesis papers.

How many signatures did the 2009 petition demanding a government apology for Turing gather?

Programmer John Graham-Cumming started it; Gordon Brown responded within a month with 'we're sorry, you deserved so much better'.

Roughly how many other men and women received pardons under the 'Alan Turing law' of 2017?

Turing's own royal pardon was only the fourth granted since the Second World War.

In 2023 Defence Secretary Ben Wallace suggested a permanent Turing statue where?

Wallace called Turing 'probably the greatest war hero, in my book, of the Second World War'.