Today, the Associated Press reports that Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of Britian, has apologized for Britian's treatment of Alan Turing. See the news item below.
September 11, 2009
UK Gov't Apologizes to Gay Codebreaker Alan Turing
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:58 a.m. ET
LONDON (AP) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered a posthumous apology Friday for the ''inhumane'' treatment of Alan Turing, the World War II codebreaker who committed suicide in 1954 after being prosecuted for homosexuality and forcibly treated with female hormones.
The mathematician helped crack Nazi Germany's Enigma encryption machine -- a turning point in the war -- and is considered a father of modern computing.
In 1952, however, Turing was convicted of gross indecency for having sex with a man and offered a choice between prison and ''chemical castration'' -- the injection of female hormones to suppress his libido. His security clearance was revoked and he was no longer allowed to work for the government.
Two years later, he killed himself at age 41 by eating an apple laced with cyanide.
As Britain marks the 70th anniversary of the September 1939 start of the war -- remembered as its ''finest hour'' -- Brown said Turing ''deserved so much better'' than the treatment he received from postwar society.
''It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War II could well have been very different,'' Brown said. ''He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war.''
Brown said Turing was ''in effect, tried for being gay.'' Homosexuality was illegal in Britain until 1967.
''The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely,'' Brown said. ''We're sorry, you deserved so much better.''
Brown's apology follows an online petition that drew more than 30,000 supporters, including novelist Ian McEwan, scientist Richard Dawkins and actor and comedian Stephen Fry.
Computer scientist John Graham-Cumming said he started the petition campaign because Turing ''wasn't as well known in Britain as I think he deserved to be, as a hero of the Second World War and a great mathematician.''
Working at the wartime codebreaking center at Bletchley Park, Turing helped crack Germany's secret codes by creating the ''Turing bombe,'' a forerunner of modern computers, to help reveal the settings for the Enigma machine.
Turing also did pioneering work on artificial intelligence, developing the ''Turing Test'' to measure whether a machine can think. One of the most prestigious honors in computing, the $250,000 Turing Prize, is named for him.
Graham-Cumming said Turing had a strong claim to the title ''father of computing.''
''He was thinking about what it meant to have a computer long before they existed,'' Graham-Cumming said. ''He laid out the fundamental science of it.''
Turing was among a motley group of mathematicians, cryptographers, crossword puzzle aficionados, chess masters and other experts assembled at a mansion called Bletchley Park, northwest of London, to wage a secret war against Nazi Germany. Their goal: cracking Adolf Hitler's supposedly unbreakable codes.
The team uncovered the secret to the Enigma machine and other ciphers used by the Nazi high command, revealing details of the movements of Germany's U-boat fleets and handing victory on the seas to the Allies.
Their work also provided crucial information in the desert campaign against German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and the preparations for the Allied invasion of France.
''It is doubtful whether the D-Day landings would have happened, let alone succeeded,'' without Bletchley Park, said Kelsey Griffin, a director of the Bletchley Park museum.
She said Turing ''stands alongside (Winston) Churchill as one of our great Britons.''
Secrecy about the work at Bletchley Park, maintained long after the war was over, meant that for decades the role played by Turing and thousands of other codebreakers was not widely known.
Brown's apology, published on his office Web site, was seen as rare. The British government has resisted previous calls to apologize for historical events. In 2006, then-Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed ''deep sorrow'' for the slave trade, but stopped short of saying sorry.
Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said Brown's apology to Turing was ''most welcome and commendable,'' but didn't go far enough.
''A similar apology is also due to the estimated 100,000 British men who were convicted of consenting, victimless same-sex relationships during the 20th century,'' Tatchell said.
------
On the Net:
Gordon Brown's apology: www.number10.gov.uk
Bletchley Park: www.bletchleypark.org.uk
Showing posts with label Alan Turing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alan Turing. Show all posts
Friday, September 11, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Pardon Alan Turing
Alan Turing was one of the fathers of computer science and a homosexual. Because of his sexual orientation, he was hounded to suicide. The article below describes how many in Britain want this injustice recognized and amends made. David Leavitt's biography of Turing, "The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer," is a good place to start learning about his life and work.
BBC NEWS: Published August 31, 2009
Thousands call for Turing apology
Thousands of people have signed a Downing Street petition calling for a posthumous government apology to World War II code breaker Alan Turing. Writer Ian McEwan has just backed the campaign, which already has the support of scientist Richard Dawkins. In 1952 Turing was prosecuted under the gross indecency act after admitting to a sexual relationship with a man. Two years later he killed himself.
The petition was the idea of computer scientist John Graham-Cumming. He is seeking an apology for the way the young mathematician was treated after his conviction. He has also written to the Queen to ask for a posthumous knighthood to be awarded to the British mathematician.
Alan Turing was given experimental chemical castration as a "treatment" and his security privileges were removed, meaning he could not continue work for the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
"This added insult and humiliation ultimately drove him to suicide," said gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, who also backs the campaign. "With Turing's death, Britain and the world lost one of its finest intellectual minds. A government apology and posthumous pardon are long overdue.”
National legacy
Alan Turing is most famous for his code-breaking work at Bletchley Park during WWII, helping to create the Bombe that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines. However he also made significant contributions to the emerging fields of artificial intelligence and computing. In 1936 he established the conceptual and philosophical basis for the rise of computers in a seminal paper called "On Computable Numbers", whilst in 1950 he devised a test to measure the intelligence of a machine. Today it is known as the Turing Test.
After the war he worked at many institutions including the University of Manchester, where he worked on the Manchester Mark 1, one of the first recognisable modern computers. There is a memorial statue of him in Manchester's Sackville Gardens which was unveiled in 2001.
"I kept reading about potential funding cuts at Bletchley Park and I suddenly felt really mad about it," said Mr Graham-Cumming. "I felt Turing was getting overlooked as being a British genius and that there was a blindspot in the public eye about an important man."
He has so far collected more than 5,500 signatures. He admits that an official apology to Alan Turing is "unlikely", as Mr. Turing has no known surviving family, but he says that the real aim of the petition is symbolic. "The most important thing to me is that people hear about Alan Turing and realise his incredible impact on the modern world, and how terrible the impact of prejudice was on him," he said.
BBC NEWS: Published August 31, 2009
Thousands call for Turing apology
Thousands of people have signed a Downing Street petition calling for a posthumous government apology to World War II code breaker Alan Turing. Writer Ian McEwan has just backed the campaign, which already has the support of scientist Richard Dawkins. In 1952 Turing was prosecuted under the gross indecency act after admitting to a sexual relationship with a man. Two years later he killed himself.
The petition was the idea of computer scientist John Graham-Cumming. He is seeking an apology for the way the young mathematician was treated after his conviction. He has also written to the Queen to ask for a posthumous knighthood to be awarded to the British mathematician.
Alan Turing was given experimental chemical castration as a "treatment" and his security privileges were removed, meaning he could not continue work for the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
"This added insult and humiliation ultimately drove him to suicide," said gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, who also backs the campaign. "With Turing's death, Britain and the world lost one of its finest intellectual minds. A government apology and posthumous pardon are long overdue.”
National legacy
Alan Turing is most famous for his code-breaking work at Bletchley Park during WWII, helping to create the Bombe that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines. However he also made significant contributions to the emerging fields of artificial intelligence and computing. In 1936 he established the conceptual and philosophical basis for the rise of computers in a seminal paper called "On Computable Numbers", whilst in 1950 he devised a test to measure the intelligence of a machine. Today it is known as the Turing Test.
After the war he worked at many institutions including the University of Manchester, where he worked on the Manchester Mark 1, one of the first recognisable modern computers. There is a memorial statue of him in Manchester's Sackville Gardens which was unveiled in 2001.
"I kept reading about potential funding cuts at Bletchley Park and I suddenly felt really mad about it," said Mr Graham-Cumming. "I felt Turing was getting overlooked as being a British genius and that there was a blindspot in the public eye about an important man."
He has so far collected more than 5,500 signatures. He admits that an official apology to Alan Turing is "unlikely", as Mr. Turing has no known surviving family, but he says that the real aim of the petition is symbolic. "The most important thing to me is that people hear about Alan Turing and realise his incredible impact on the modern world, and how terrible the impact of prejudice was on him," he said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
