Not Their Finest Hour

It’s about f*cking time.

Yesterday, only 60 years after he was harassed by the British government into taking his own life, Alan Turing received a formal pardon from Queen Elizabeth II for his conviction in 1952 on charges of homosexuality, which at the time was a criminal offense in Britain.

Alan Turing 1912 – 1954

It’s difficult to find a single person who had more of an impact on the outcome of World War II than Alan Turning. He developed the machines and algorithms that broke the German “Enigma” code used by the Nazis to encrypt their communications during the war.

Today he is considered to be the father of modern computer science and artificial intelligence. I wonder what else he might have achieved, and shared with the world, had he not taken his life at the age of 42?