Category: Computers,History]

About damn time.

Alan Turing is considered the father of computer science. A genius. His room size decrypting machines at Bletchley Park are usually deemed as one of the major reasons the Allies won World War II. Unfortunately, in the 1950s he was brought up on criminal charges for being gay in a very public fashion. Soon after he committed suicide.

The first I ever heard of Turing was in college. I was fascinated by his concept of a Turing machine and the possibility of a Turning test. It was that kind of vision back than that helped usher in all of this modern technology.

It wasn't until I read Cryptonimicon in the late 1990s that I learned that he was a gay and committed suicide. It is nice to know that even after all these years that the British government did the right thing and recognized him for the hero that he was.