The discovery of the structure of DNA created a new science, in the same way that Alan’s pioneering work on computing machinery did. Molecular biology almost constituted a reverse takeover of the biological sciences, so that an air of invalidity or irrelevance hung over traditional methods of investigation, particularly as regards questions concerning development of organisms and evolution. Alan’s ideas were theoretical, not experimental, did not depend on genetics, and were buried. Other theories concerning pattern formation came into the ascendant, notably the model advanced by Professor Lewis Wolpert that ‘positional information’ derived from a gradient of increasing concentration of a morphogen could explain a good deal about how developing organisms ‘know’ how to grow a limb in a particular place. However, experiments done in the last few years have pointed to weaknesses in the Wolpert model which can better be explained using Turing’s model of reaction and diffusion. The story seems reminiscent of the debate on Bayesian statistics, used by Alan and I.J. Good in the attack on the U-boat codes, despite the use of such a technique being faintly subversive and at risk of being disparaged by the establishment. Biologists, dependent on peer-review for their publications, and needing to swim close to the mainstream to have their grant proposals accepted, cannot depart too radically from current orthodoxy. Nowadays, however, biologists are keen to have the authority of Alan Turing behind their plans and discoveries. Everyone wants to adopt Alan Turing now.
The more people found out about Alan, the more they became interested in his life story and the incredible – by the standards of the twenty-first century – official reaction to Alan’s lifestyle. The mystery surrounding his final days has added to the piquancy of the tale. The British like their heroes to have had short, spicy lives, and a whiff of uncertainty adds intrigue to the recipe. Blue plaques and statues have sprung up everywhere. Ring roads have been named and documentaries made. Perhaps the most remarkable adoption has been by successive British governments of alternate political colours: first an apology under Gordon Brown’s premiership, and later a (more controversial) Royal Pardon under David Cameron’s. The Brown government statement reads in part as follows:
Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time, and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair, and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was convicted, under homophobic laws, were treated terribly. Over the years, millions more lived in fear [of] conviction.
Jin Wicked’s image of Alan Turing as a Turing machine.
It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present. So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work, I am very proud to say: we’re sorry. You deserved so much better.
Gordon Brown
This is not the place to debate the relative merits of apologies and pardons. Perhaps we should remember that Alan Turing’s life was not, except perhaps towards the end, governed by his sexuality. The dominant passion in his life was his ideas; it is those for which he should be remembered, and for them no apology is needed.
NOTES AND ACCREDITATIONS
References with AMT prefixes attributed to the King’s College Archive and no further details are © the Estate of P.N. Furbank and reproduced by kind permission of Professor W.R. Owens and the Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge. Visit http://www.turingarchive.org/browse.php.
All Alan Turing’s letters to his mother are in the King’s College Archive, reference AMT/K/1.
References to TNA are to the UK National Archives (and should be assumed to be Crown copyright) and references to NARA are to the US National Archives Records Administration.
Family photographs to which no specific accreditation is given are © Beryl Turing.
1. Unreliable Ancestors
By the marriages: F.W. Blagdon, A Brief History of Ancient and Modern India, Edward Orme (1805)
Locked his wife in a closet; Cowardly, insidious: Jesse Foot, The lives of Andrew Robinson Bowes, Esq. and the Countess of Strathmore, written from thirty-three years professional attendance, from letters, and other well authenticated documents, Becket and Porter (c.1815)
Was a collateral; When I first left school; and other quotations: John Turing, The half was not told me, unpublished autobiography (1967)
How can girls be prepared: quoted by A.K. Clarke, A History of the Cheltenham Ladies’ College 1853–1953, Faber & Faber (1953)
Picture credit: Signatures from Henry Davison Love, Vestiges of Old Madras, Vol 3 © The British Library Board (OIR 954.82)
2. Dismal Childhoods
I seem to remember; Spare, gruff; and otherwise unattributed quotations: John Turing, The half was not told me, unpublished autobiography (1967) and other personal papers
There are two resolves: Maud Diver, The Englishwoman in India, Blackwood (1909)
The dearth of suitable relations: Vyvyen Brendon, Children of the Raj, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2005)
Puny, pallid, skinny and fretful: from a splendid modern study of Raj families and their pressures by Elizabeth Buettner, Empire Families, Oxford University Press (2004)
From having been extremely vivacious; A book entitled; and other quotations: Sara Turing, Alan M. Turing, W. Heffer & Sons (1959)
Not just darts: John Turing, op.cit.
As we sit down to write: Hazelhurst Gazette, January 1921
Picture credits: Baston Lodge courtesy of East Sussex County Council Library & Information Service; Hockey field © the Estate of P.N. Furbank and reproduced by kind permission of Professor W.R. Owens and the Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge
3. Direction of Travel
Largely ornamental education: Elizabeth Buettner, op.cit.
The bias of the school: Board of Education report
I have provided: Head Master’s Report to the Governors for 1909
Before Alan went to Sherborne: Sara Turing, op.cit.
School reports: courtesy of Sherborne School Archive
Mother was constrained: John Turing, My brother Alan, in Sara Turing, Alan M. Turing, Centenary Edition, Cambridge University Press (2012)
Probably the best in the school: A.B. Gourlay, A history of Sherborne School, Warren & Son (1951)
There was considerable tension: Sara Turing, Alan M. Turing (1959)
One term he made a star chart: Victor Cannon-Brookes, C.C.M. – A Memoir, unpublished; with thanks to Christopher Morcom QC
Possibly other boys; and following quotation: A.H. Trelawny-Ross, Christopher Morcom, unpublished, Sherborne School Archive (c. 1930)
To share with someone: Alan Turing, Impressions of Chris, prepared for Mrs Morcom (c.1930); with thanks to Christopher Morcom QC
In July his H.S.C. marks: D.B. Eperson, ‘Educating a Mathematical Genius’, The Shirburnian, Trinity (1993)
A.M. Turing showed an unusual aptitude: Transcript by Ethel Turing in Sherborne School Archive
To the Editor: Sherborne School Archive; with much gratitude to Rachel Hassall
Picture credits: Alan Turing aged 16, Westcott House and Bonzo courtesy of Sherborne School; Stairwell and Mercy-seat © David Ridgway, Sherborne School
4. Kingsman
Rumours of these matters; and other quotations: John Turing, The half was not told me, unpublished autobiography (1967) and other personal papers
Among these are to be reckoned: Mary E. Swan and Kenneth R. Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson Swan FRS, Oriel Press (2nd edn, 1968)
Quotations from Mrs Morcom’s diary, and Ethel Turing’s and Alan Turing’s letters to Mrs Morcom by kind permission of the Morcom family
Unfortunate to lose A M T
uring; and following quotation: KCBC Captain’s book, by kind permission of the officers of the King’s College Boat Club and the Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge
A somewhat noisy: L.P. Wilkinson, A Century of King’s 1873–1972, King’s College, Cambridge (1980)
People and books: Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, quoted by L.P. Wilkinson, op.cit.
In an 1896 publication: Julie Anne Tadeo, Plato’s Apostles: Edwardian Cambridge and the ‘New Style of Love’, Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol 8, No 2, pp196–228, University of Texas Press (Oct 1997)
Round to see his rooms; and following quotation: Mrs Morcom’s diary for 19 February 1932
Even the most complacent student: L.P. Wilkinson, op.cit.
I have a horrid recollection: John Turing, My brother Alan, in Sara Turing, Alan M. Turing, Centenary Edition (2012)
His fine head of hair: L.P. Wilkinson, op.cit.
Reports on dissertation: King’s College Archive, KCAC/4/11/2. By kind permission of the Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge
Picture credits: Isobel Morcom © Shaun Armstrong/Mubsta.com and by kind permission of Christopher Morcom; Trophies and Porgy © Bletchley Park Trust; Sheppard by kind permission of the Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge; Prize books © Shaun Armstrong/ Mubsta.com and by kind permission of the Bletchley Park Trust and the Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge; Q2 and X8 © Shaun Armstrong/Mubsta.com and by kind permission of the Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge
5. Machinery of Logic
The point was that Hilbert: M.H.A. Newman, interview with Brian Randell (1975)
I believe it all started: M.H.A. Newman, recorded interview, cassette No 14, Pioneers of Computing series, Science Museum Archive (1976)
We may compare a man: A.M. Turing, On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, Series 2, Vol 42, pp230–265 (1937)
Newman letter to Church: Alonzo Church papers, Princeton University Library RBSC, Box 20, Folder 6
If one is given a puzzle: A.M. Turing, Solvable and Unsolvable Problems, Science News, Vol 31, pp7–23 (1954)
Quotations from Mrs Morcom’s diary by kind permission of the Morcom family
Alonzo Church had the polite manners: Herbert B. Enderton, Alonzo Church: Life and Work, in Collected Works of Alonzo Church, MIT Press (online preprint available at UCLA)
Humpty Dumpty: New Statesman and Nation, 16 January 1937 (p100)
Alan Turing letter to Stanley Skewes: reproduced in S. Barry Cooper and Jan van Leeuwen (eds), Alan Turing – his work and impact, Elsevier (2013)
Turing actually designed; It was probably in the fall of 1937: Quoted in Andrew Hodges’s Alan Turing: The Enigma, Burnett Books (1983)
Mathematical reasoning: A.M. Turing, Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, Series 2, Vol 45, pp161–228 (1939)
Aspray-Church interview: Princeton Mathematics Community in the 1930s, Transcript No 5, Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University (1984)
Alan considered that his paper: King’s College Archive, AMT/A/8. By kind permission of the Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge
It has long been recognised: A.M. Turing, The Reform of Mathematical Notation and Phraseology, King’s College Archive, AMT/C/12 (undated but possibly 1944)
A new idea that was to change the face: Solomon Feferman, Turing’s Thesis: Ordinal Logics and Oracle Computability, in S. Barry Cooper and Jan van Leeuwen (eds), Alan Turing – his work and impact, Elsevier (2013)
Alan Turing letter to Philip Hall: King’s College Archive, AMT/D/12. By kind permission of the Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge
One day in the summer of 1938: L.P. Wilkinson, op.cit.
Wittgenstein suggestion: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures on the foundations of mathematics, ed. Cora Diamond, Harvester Press (1976)
It is proposed: A.M. Turing, Proposal for Royal Society grant, 24 March 1939
All I remember: Quoted in Brian Randell, ‘On Alan Turing and the Origins of Digital Computers’, in B. Meltzer and D. Michie (eds), Machine Intelligence 7, Edinburgh University Press (1972)
Picture credits: Newman © Godfrey Argent, image provided by London Mathematical Society; Turing machine courtesy of Rainer Glaschick and the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation (Paderborn); Computable Numbers paper by kind permission of the Bletchley Park Trust; Passport photo and Zeta machine © the Estate of P.N. Furbank and reproduced by kind permission of Professor W.R. Owens and the Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge; Rules of Go courtesy of Isobel Robinson; Church courtesy of Princeton University (undated; Alonzo Church Papers, Box 60, Folder 3; Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library)
6. Prof
I have been in touch; All documents required: TNA HW 62/21/7
A maudlin and monstrous pile: Quoted by Robin W. Winks, Cloak and Gown – Scholars in America’s secret war, Yale University Press (1987)
Denniston letters: TNA FO 366/1059
’Twas Hutsix: Quoted by Mavis Batey, Dilly – The Man Who Broke Enigma, Dialogue (2009)
When the war started: C.H.O’D. Alexander, Cryptographic History of Work on the German Naval Enigma, TNA HW 25/1 (undated, probably 1945)
He did not want coffee breaks: Batey, op.cit.
He invested in some silver ingots; He used to cycle; and other quotations: John Turing, My brother Alan, in Sara Turing, Alan M. Turing, Centenary Edition (2012)
In the shelter: Sara Turing, Alan M. Turing, W. Heffer & Sons (1959)
Every now and then: D. Michie, interview with Brian Randell (1975)
Instead of having it mended; When he attacked a problem: I.J. Good, ‘Pioneering Work on Computers at Bletchley’, in N. Metropolis, J. Howlett and Gian-Carlo Rota (eds), A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century, Academic Press (1980)
Turing was now faced: Alexander, TNA HW 25/1
I suggest we obtain; Turing and Twinn: TNA ADM 223/463
Rose from the ranks: Joan Murray, ‘Hut 8 and naval Enigma, Part I’, in F.H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp (eds), Codebreakers – the Inside Story of Bletchley Park, Oxford University Press (1993)
I suppose the fact: Joan Murray, interviewed in 1991 for BBC TV’s Horizon: The Strange Life and Death of Dr Turing
A flood of decrypted: Patrick Beesly, Very Special Intelligence – the Story of the Admiralty’s Operational Intelligence Centre 1939–1945, Hamish Hamilton (1977)
When the party turned up: Gordon Welchman, The Hut Six Story, Allen Lane (1982)
Letter to Churchill: TNA HW 1/155
Most people did not take: Joan Murray, ‘Hut 8 and naval Enigma, Part I’, op.cit.
The first Wynn Williams assembly; It looks as if Keen’s machine: NARA RG 38, HMS Entry AI-1030, Box 183. NARA Identifier 7525044 (Bombe Correspondence), Report of 4 October 1942 on high-speed machines
You had to get over a hurdle: D. Michie, interview with Brian Randell (1975)
Never had any trouble: T. Flowers, interview with Brian Randell (1975)
On 24 April: F.H. Hinsley et al, British Intelligence in the Second World War, HMSO (1981)
Technical assistance, etc: TNA HW 8/26, Memorandum for Commander Travis from Captain Holden, 2 October 1942
Travis telegram: NARA RG 38, HMS Entry AI-1030, Box 183. NARA Identifier 7525044
Picture credits: Adcock courtesy of the Churchill Archives Centre, The Papers of Alexander Guthrie Denniston, DENN 3/2; Mansion, Cottages, Enigma machine, Banburismus and Turing’s office © Bletchley Park Trust; Bombe and Prof’s book © Crown Copyright and used by kind permission of the Director, GCHQ; Joan Clarke reproduced with the kind permission of John Clarke
7. Looking Glass War
I reached New York: A.M. Turing, Report on Cryptographic Machinery available at Navy Department Washington, TNA HW 57/10 (1942)
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As I saw nobody working; My Princeton Ph.D: TNA HW 57/10
Visit to National Cash Register Corporation: NARA RG 38, HMS Entry AI-1030, Box 183. NARA Identifier 7525044
I do not feel safe: TNA CAB 120/767
American Research and Development; Dill-Marshall correspondence: TNA CAB 122/14
M-228 quotations: NARA RG 457, HMS Entry AI-9032, Box 948. NARA Identifier 2809364
Turing report on Bombe: TNA HW 62/5
Ismay report to Churchill; Bell System depends; I am in some difficulty: TNA CAB 120/768
Although his intellectual leadership: D. Michie, interview with Brian Randell (1975)
An improved Enigma type: F.H. Hinsley et al, British Intelligence in the Second World War
Most secret report: TNA CAB 21/2522
Turing work on Typex: TNA HW 40/87, with thanks to the Director, GCHQ
D.D. (S) Serial Order No.117: TNA HW 62/5
He was a bit slapdash: D. Bayley, interview with author (2014)
He was intrigued: D. Michie, interview with Brian Randell (1975)
Provision will be made: TNA HW 62/5
When I arrived: Robin Gandy, interviewed in 1991 for BBC TV’s Horizon: The Strange Life and Death of Dr Turing
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