Alan Turing

Updated: 03/13/2021 by Computer Hope
Alan Turing

Name: Alan Mathison Turing

Born: June 23, 1912, in Maida Vale, London, England, United Kingdom

Death: June 7, 1954 (Age: 41)

Computer-related contributions

  • English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist who is considered to be the father of computer science.
  • Developed the Turing Machine in 1936.
  • Developed the Turing Test.
  • Considered by most to be the father of AI and computer science.
  • Since 1966, the Turing Award is given annually by the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) to a person for technical contributions to the computing community. It is widely considered to be the computing world's highest honor, equivalent to the Nobel Prize.

Honors and awards

  • The movie The Imitation Game (2014) was based on his life story.
  • Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
  • Fellow of the Royal Society.

Quotes

"A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human."

"Machines take me by surprise with great frequency."

"It seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers. They would be able to converse with each other to sharpen their wits. At some state therefore, we should have to expect the machines to take control."

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