The Death of Alan Turing

Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician, logician and cryptographer who is often considered the father of modern computer science. This excerpt, from an obscure documentary, deals with a sadder fact of his life, namely the persecution he faced from his own government for being a homosexual. What happened to this man is a shame that should never be forgotten.
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"As the pivotal intellect in the breaking of the German Enigma codes, Turing arguably made a greater contribution to defeating the Nazis than Eisenhower or Churchill. Thanks to Turing and his 'Ultra' colleagues at Bletchley Park, Allied generals in the field were consistently, over long periods of the war, privy to details German plans before the German generals had time to implement them. After the war, when Turing's role was no longer top secret, he should have been knighted and feted as a saviour of his nation. Instead, this gentle, stammering, eccentric genius was destroyed, for a 'crime', committed in private, which harmed nobody. Once again, the unmistakable trademark of the faith-based moralizer is to care passionately about what other people do (or even think) in private." -- The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins.

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