Alan Turing

Computing patriarch

Along with those who resided at 10 Downing Street, Alan Turing was among the most important Britons of the 20th century. A developer of the modern computer, the renowned mathematician helped shape the future of technology. He was also a World War II code breaker who helped crack the most impenetrable Nazi tool of secret communications, the famed Enigma code. No matter--in 1952 Turing was convicted of "gross indecency" for homosexuality, then a crime in England. As part of his sentence he was chemically castrated and subjected to estrogen treatments. Two years later he committed suicide. He was 41.

On Dec....

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