Childhood: Born to Julius Mathison and Ethel Sara Turing and brother John.

Education: Sherborne Public School and Ling's College, Cambridge.

Work: In 1937 he published the paper, On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, in Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (2), 42. This proved that there exist classes of mathematical problems which are not susceptible to fixed and definite processes, that is, by automatic machines. This laid the groundwork for much computability theory. The words "Turing machine" were first put into published form by A. Church in his review of Turing's paper in the Journal of Symbolic Logic. He was behind the successful effort to break the German Enigma ciphers during World War II at Bletchley Park. An enigma machine
After the war Turing joined the mathematics devision of the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, where he made significant contributions to the theoretical work which led to the development of the general computer, Automatic Computing Engine (ACE). A pilot version of the machine was in operation in 1950, (although Turing had left the project in 1947), and the mature version by 1957. Turing was appointed reader in the theory of computation at the University of Manchester in 1948 and was made the assistant director of the Manchester Automatic Digital Machine (MADAM).
The paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence was published in Mind in October 1950. In this Turing concluded that by his definition of thinking it would be possible to make intelligent machines. He suggested that within 50 years a person sitting typing questions at a computer terminal would not be able to tell whether it is a computer or a person providing the answers. Since 1991 the Loebner Prize Contest has set a competition under Turing Test conditions where the most convincing computer program wins.
In his later years Turing attempted to develop a mathematical theory of the chemical basis of organic growth. He was able to formulate and solve differential equations to express certain examples of symmetry in biology and also certain phenomena such as the the shapes of brown and black patches on crows. In 1951 Turing was elected Fellow of the Royal Society.

Friend & Relationships: In 1952 Turing was arrested and tried for having sex with a nineteen-year-old man. (Sex between two men over 21 and "in private" was decriminalised in Britain in 1967, and the age of consent was reduced to 18 in 1994.) He spent a year on probation, including a conditi on that he receive estrogen injections to curb his sex drive, but which resulted in him developing breasts. He died in 1954 from taking potassium cyanide at his home where he was performing electrolysis experiments. The coroner concluded that his poisoning was deliberate, but his mother believed it to be an accident because he was in the habit of keeping poisonous chemicals in unmarked containers such as tea-cups and sugar bowls.

Finest Achievement: Breaking the Enigma codes and developing the computing theories which have enabled today's computers to be built.

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