The Dawn of the Computer Age
Alan Turing
The first man to significantly use a computer, Alan Turing worked on his greatest achievement at the University of Manchester.
Turing's Early Studies
A Londoner by birth, Alan Turing was a graduate of King??s College, Cambridge where he studied quantum mechanics, probability and logic. Turing gained his PhD when he worked on theories of using electromagnetic relays to multiply binary numbers at the University of Princeton, USA.
The War
After studying in the USA, and the prospect of war with Germany in 1939, Turing returned home to Cambridge to study ciphers and codes. It was during this time he worked on the German Enigma cipher problem, developing the ??Bombe?? machine for Enigma decryption.
During the war, Turing continued to work on the analysis of codes, and by 1942 his machines breaking German U-boat codes.
Turing's Work in Manchester
After the war, Turing moved to Manchester University, where he further developed his work on programming and this led to the first significant use of a computer. His work led to the publication of numerous papers on machine intelligence. In 1951 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.
Alan Turing committed suicide in 1954, at his home in Wilmslow, Cheshire, but will be best remembered as one of the greatest code breakers who was crucial in cracking the Nazi Enigma Machine during the second World War and as the genius who laid the foundation for the modern theory of artificial intelligence.
Submitted by: Iain Patterson, 05 March 2003
