sparkindarkness (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sparkindarkness) wrote2012-06-23 01:29 pm
sparkindarkness) wrote2012-06-23 01:29 pm
Entry tags:
Alan Turing's Birthday
Today is Alan Turing’s birthday, if he were alive he would be 100 years old
Alan Turing was one of those people who changed the world. His work, his genius was incredible. He is, deservedly, considered one of the fathers of computing and it’s not an exaggeration to say his work had a pivotal effect on the outcome of the Second World War, certainly in helping Britain survive the constant U-Boat attacks. He did work in Mathematics I won’t even pretend to understand.
In short, he is a man whose name should have a guaranteed place in the history books.
Yet it did not. I grew up not knowing his name, not once was it mentioned in the history books. A depressing number of people have never heard of him. Many of those who knew his name didn’t realise the sheer magnitude of what he’d achieved. A large number of those who had heard of him hadn’t learned that he was gay and fewer still had heard what had happened to him.
Because Alan Turing was gay. As a gay man he was convicted and branded a criminal, as a gay man he lost his security clearance that allowed him to provide us with his brilliant work, and as a gay man he was chemically castrated. He endured, but his writings showed a man who hated what had happened to him, until he finally committed suicide.
We killed one of our heroes.
Read More
Alan Turing was one of those people who changed the world. His work, his genius was incredible. He is, deservedly, considered one of the fathers of computing and it’s not an exaggeration to say his work had a pivotal effect on the outcome of the Second World War, certainly in helping Britain survive the constant U-Boat attacks. He did work in Mathematics I won’t even pretend to understand.
In short, he is a man whose name should have a guaranteed place in the history books.
Yet it did not. I grew up not knowing his name, not once was it mentioned in the history books. A depressing number of people have never heard of him. Many of those who knew his name didn’t realise the sheer magnitude of what he’d achieved. A large number of those who had heard of him hadn’t learned that he was gay and fewer still had heard what had happened to him.
Because Alan Turing was gay. As a gay man he was convicted and branded a criminal, as a gay man he lost his security clearance that allowed him to provide us with his brilliant work, and as a gay man he was chemically castrated. He endured, but his writings showed a man who hated what had happened to him, until he finally committed suicide.
We killed one of our heroes.
Read More