Today he’s best known as the inventor of the modern digital computer, the one who laid down the mathematical foundation for all computer science. And even if we’d won the war, without Turing’s work it’s likely that millions more soldiers and civilians would have died in the fight.Īnd Turing’s work didn’t end with cryptography. Our world maps would look vastly different today.
The Japanese might have retained control of East Asia. The Nazi regime might have remained undefeated, still in control of Northern Europe and western Asia. Without his work, WWII would have ended very differently. The Allies had to employ all sorts of tricks to hide their success if you want a fascinating account, I highly recommend Neal Stephenson’s semi-fictional Cryptonomicon, the story of the rise of modern cryptography.Īlan Turing literally saved the world from Nazi domination. Turing’s work was so good it was like cheating at cards: if you win every hand, the other players will quickly figure out that the game is rigged. In World War II, Alan Turing’s genius at breaking Nazi secret codes was so successful that the Allies could have sunk almost every single U-boat and convoy that left Germany.
A man who should have been a hero of the free world and idolized next to Einstein and Newton in the history books was instead hounded to death because of religion-inspired homophobia. The story of Alan Turing is one of the most disgraceful episodes of modern civilization. You strip him of all dignity and hound him until in shame and despair he swallows a cyanide pill and dies. You force him to choose prison or chemical castration. What do you do to a homosexual mathematician whose code-breaking genius saved the world during World War II? Not figuratively, but actually saved the world from Nazi domination? You put him on trial, of course! You convict him of gross indecency.