Alan Turing The CODE-BREAKER who invented the computer age Englishman Alan Turing not only helped to turn the tide of World War II, but also developed the idea of the modern computer.
Cracking the code During World War II, Turing joined the code-breakers working at a top-secret British base, Bletchley Park. The Germans were using a typewriter-like device called the Enigma machine to transmit coded military messages. Turing and his colleague Gordon Welchman developed the BOMBE machine to decode these messages. The machine played a crucial role in the victory of Allied forces over Germany.
Turing, aged 13, with his school friends
The Germans changed codes every day using the Enigma machine.
e The Bombed k or machine wossible p y out ever ation of combin odes. Enigma c
A maths genius Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician. In 1936, while still at the University of Cambridge, he outlined his theory of a UNIVERSAL MACHINE. This was a device that could solve any problem using a set of coded instructions that were stored in its memory – an idea that paved the way for modern computer science.
know? Did you ld solve Turing cou ematical ath advanced m s by the m proble age of 14.
What came before… In the 1820s, English mathematician Charles Babbage designed and partially built a mechanical calculator called the Difference engine. This device used arithmetical addition, and was powered by cranking a handle. 116
American inventor Herman Hollerith built the first tabulating anD sorting machine in 1889. It used punched cards to record and process data; a clerk would sit at a desk and insert cards into the machine.
