Alan Turing
Nobody can ever forget Alan Turing. Today, the world is at your finger tips, thanks to the contribution of Alan Mathison Turing.
Alan Turing was born in London on 23rd June 1912. His father, Julius Mathison Turing, was British member of the Indian Civil Service. While he was a student, Turing was very much interested in Mathematics. However the book titled ‘Natural Wonders Every Child Should Know‘ attracted him deeply and eventually he turned to learning science. He studied in King’s College, Cambridge and he became one of the noted scientists of this period.
During the Second World War, Turing worked in Britain’s Code Breaking Centre. He successfully developed a number of devices for breaking the German Ciphers including the technique of bomb and electro mechanical machine. Alan Turing made a remarkable contribution in the development of computer science by giving a formalisation of the concept of ‘algorithm’ and computation with the Turing Machine. This device can be considered as a model of a general purpose computer, science and artificial intelligence.
In 1948, Turing joined the Max Newman Computer Laboratory at Manchester University. He assisted there for the development of the Manchester Computer. In fact, he was a man in search of knowledge always and his attention turned to Mathematical Biology. He wrote a Paper on the Chemical basis of Morphogenesis and predicted Oscillating chemical reactions.
Unfortunately, this great scientist bade farewell to this world on 7 June 1954 at the early age of 41. In memory of Alan Turing, The Association for Computing Machinery gives the annual ‘ACM Turing Award‘ to the scholars who get the highest distinction in computer science.
