ALAN TURING
BY HARRIET CRUICKSHANK
INTRODUCTION
Alan Turing was born on the 23rd June 1912 and died on 7th June 1954 aged 41. He was a British mathematician and scientist. He created a computer called the bombe which could solve many answers to the enigma code in the second world war.
EARLY LIFE
At school he was highly intelligent and by the age of 13 he was known as an independent worker and was interested in maths and science. He studied at King's College in Cambridge from 1931 to 1934. He invented the bombe which was capable of computing anything that is computable. Over the next two years, Turing studied mathematics and cryptology at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. After receiving his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1938, he returned to Cambridge, and then took a part-time position with the Government Code and Cypher School, a British code-breaking organization.
DURING THE WAR
During World War II, Turing was a leading participant in wartime code-breaking, particularly that of German ciphers. He worked at Bletchley Park, the GCCS wartime station. He also wrote two papers about mathematical approaches to code-breaking, which became such important assets to the Code and Cypher School that the Government Communication waited until April 2012 to release them to the National Archives of the United Kingdom.
THE BOMBE
Alan Turing invented the bombe to break codes during the 2nd world war.
ALAN TURING