Alan Turing is celebrated as the codebreaker of World War II, but his legacy reaches far beyond Bletchley Park. This article reveals the overlooked brilliance, bold predictions, and tragic twists behind the man who gave birth to modern computing.
Alan Turing
Alan Turing showed genius early and once tackled advanced Einstein theories as a teenager at Sherborne School.
He was passionate about long-distance running and even competed in races against Olympic-level athletes.
Turing once ran the marathon in 2 hours 46 minutes, just 11 minutes slower than the Olympic winner that year.
He enjoyed tinkering with mechanical devices, and he built a working model of a record player from discarded parts.
Alan Turing proposed the idea of “morphogenesis,” explaining natural patterns like stripes on zebras or spots on leopards.
He loved solving practical problems and once fixed his bicycle chain by memorizing the count of worn links.
Turing suggested the concept of artificial intelligence through his famous “imitation game,” now known as the Turing Test.
Although best known for mathematics, he also published key papers in biology, bridging life sciences with computation.
Alan Turing used mathematics to study plant growth and even created models of how leaves grow on a stem.
He often chained his teacup to a radiator at Bletchley Park to prevent coworkers from stealing it.
He was fascinated by cryptic puzzles and enjoyed inventing problems for colleagues to solve.
Turing used to cycle several miles daily to his laboratory, even in harsh English weather.
Few people know that he designed some of the first chess algorithms well before computers could actually process them.
In 1952, he collaborated with Manchester University to implement early programming systems for one of the first computers.
Today, Alan Turing’s face appears on the £50 banknote, a tribute to his enduring influence on technology and history
