Alan Turing Research Paper

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Born on June 23, 1912 in Maida Vale, United Kingdom, Alan Mathison Turing was an accomplished English computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. He developed the idea of a modern computer, artificial intelligence, and was crucial in the breaking enemy codes during World War II. As a child, he attended Sherborne School, top private school where his teachers eventually noticed him for his extraordinary talent for math and science; he would be able to solve complicated calculus problems in his head by the age of fifteen and he would often study far beyond the school curriculum in the math and sciences. Having demonstrated his mathematical and scientific prowess in Sherborne, Turing received …show more content…

Shortly after, the United Kingdom joined World War II and Turing contributed to the war effort by helping break codes. His biggest contribution was his aid in the decryption of messages encrypted by the Enigma Machine, which was used by the Nazis. The Enigma Machine had one flaw: each letter that was encrypted would always be a different letter. For example, an O would never encrypt to an O. Turing used this to his advantage to create a machine called The Bombe, which would try every single possible combination in a message. If a letter would encode to itself, it would be discarded. This narrowed down the number of possibilities of a message to only a slim margin, making it much easier to decrypt messages. After World War II, Turing went on to try to create the first electronic computer. Though an actual computer was never built under him, his design was used as a blueprint for many years by corporations that eventually created the world’s first computer. He then went on to hold high-ranking positions in mathematics and computing at the University of Manchester. There, he developed the concept of artificial intelligence and the Turing Test. The test stated that if a machine could fool humans that it was a human itself, the machine was considered

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