2 minute read
The Death of Alan Turing
from A Is For
by nathfiction
Alan Turing can easily be regarded as the founder of modern coding and computers, a mathematician from London, he was a pioneer of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence, where he developed a test, known as the Turing Test, to determine the effectiveness of A.I. which is still used to this day. In 1936 he pioneered the idea for the Turing machine, which was the basis for the first computer, and during WW2, he was instrumental in breaking the German Enigma code, leading to Allied victory over Nazi Germany.
However this brilliant man’s life was cut short when he was found dead, aged 42 after cyanide poisoning. The investigation to his death in the 1950’s concluded that his death was an act of suicide, and next to his bed was an apple with a single bite taken out of it.
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It has now been widely speculated that Turing injected this apple with cyanide and took one fatal bite as a way to finally escape the frustration of persecution from others, especially the police and the state. It was said by the courts examining his death that he was overwhelmed by the chemical castration the British government forced upon him after he admitted to being homosexual and having a sexual relationship with a man, which was against the law at the time. He had to undertake the chemical castration to suppress his “sexual desires” otherwise he would have lost his post at Manchester University and with it, access to working on the only computer in the world.
When Turing died, he was regarded as a criminal. It wasn’t until 1967 that Britain decriminalised homosexuality but it wasn’t until 2013, 59 years after his death that Queen Elizabeth II gave him a royal pardon.
His death and its connection to the apple has been seen as the real life story of Snow White and is a poignant reminder to discrimination and persecution of the LGBTQI+ community by the British government, as well as the wider society. Now with 60 years of hindsight it has been speculated that his death may have been accidental, as he was known to be careless in his experiments, but may have also been a plot by the government itself as a way to make sure that Turing could never defect after his treatment for being homosexual. Whatever the reason behind his death, the apple will forever be intertwined with the loss of one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century
