There's a man that we have to thank for things like a world free of Nazis
and full of computers and we did not treat him particularly well as a society.
Yes, I'm talking about Alan Turing. Turing was born in England in 1912 and as he made
his way through school
his teachers realized that he was not a normal brilliant kid,
he was an ultra-mega-super math genius.
He could do things like solve complicated calculus problems in his head
before his teachers taught him calculus.
But Turing differed from to the other boys in his fancy boarding school
in another way: he was openly gay. And mind you this
was in a place and time when homosexuality was
literally illegal. But Turing's oppression didn't prevent him from
kicking math's ass during the 1930s.
He was interested in artificial intelligence and in college he postulated the Turing machine.
He just thought, he didn't make it, he thought it up.
A machine that could calculate anything calculable. In his head he created the idea of a computer
and of computer programs. Without any computers having ever existed.
He just made the idea up. Turing wasn't just a math prodigy,
he was also an amazing engineer.
When Britain joined in World War II, its government hired Turing
to help break the codes generated by Enigma, the Germans' crazy complicated encryption device.
No one thought that these codes could be broken.
So Turing, in short order, designed a machine. An electromechanical machine
that succeeded in breaking this unbreakable code,
likely saving more British lives than any other person during World War II.
So Alan Turing was a genius
and he was a war hero no doubt about it.
And then, after the war was over in 1950s he was working on actually
building computers that operated by the rules
set by his Turning machine. One day in 1952 Turing came home to find that some of
his stuff was missing and so he called the cops because he'd been robbed.
And the cops came over and they were like 'do you have any idea who might have robbed you?'.
And Turing said 'Well,
it might have been my boyfriend' and they said 'Your boyfriend?' and he said
'My boyfriend' and then they arrested Alan Turing and charged him with gross indecency.
He was given a choice between prison or probation providing he agreed to undergo
chemical castration, a hormone treatment that at the time was thought to "cure"
homosexuality. He chose this bizarre form of probation and was given routine
estrogen injections over the course of two years which not only
yes indeed reduced his libido but made him very very depressed. A big fan of
Snow White and so in 1954 he laced an apple with cyanide and ate it.
So not only was Alan Turing a super genius war hero
and responsible for - you know- my iPhone, he was also
a victim of some really brutal prejudice. Alan Turing, I know you can't hear me
but thank you for this wonderful world free of Nazis
and full of computers that you helped create and I'm sorry
that the world was so screwed up back then.
Thank you for watching this episode of SciShow Great Minds.
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