In the winter of 1952, Alan Turing called on the Manchester police to investigate a break-in at his house. He suspected an estranged lover was responsible and, being the earnest man that he was, reported his suspicion to the police. The problem was, Turing’s lover was Arnold Murray. Homosexuality was illegal in the UK, and Turing was convicted of gross indecency. Rather than go to prison, he chose to submit himself to chemical castration. Two years later, Turing killed himself by eating a cyanide-laced apple.

This tragedy is well-known to some, since Alan Turing is also considered one of the fathers of modern computation. In particular, he was responsible for describing the operation of an abstract model of any computer (called a Turing machine) and of laying the foundations for the field of artificial intelligence via the Turing test.

Provoked by a public petition, the Prime Minister Gordon Brown has released a formal apology on behalf of the British government for its treatment of Alan Turing. The gesture is earnest and real, and it reads without prejudice or coercion.

Yet, despite the fact that the PM’s letter acknowledges the role of computer scientists in agitating for an apology, and despite the fact that the original petition highlight’s Turing’s role in laying the foundations for computing, nowhere does the British government’s response mention that fact, even in passing. Instead, the apology relies on Turing’s earlier history as a cryptanalyst, specifically his development of the “bombe” machine, used to break German Enigma codes during WWII. Here’s how the PM’s letter reads:

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different.

The letter goes on to acknowledge Turing’s contribution “to humankind” for his help in rescuing Europe from “mankind’s darkest hour.”

I’m sure there was little intentional subtext in Brown’s reply. But one can’t help but wonder why the memory of destruction, even if a necessary one, so overshadows a memory of creation. What could Brown’s omission possibly mean? Is his office simply unaware of Turing’s role in the history of computing? Is the fact that Turing’s contribution to that field remains too abstract and historically distant to make his engineering accomplishments familiar? Is being a war hero simply more noble than being a pioneer of ideas? Is this an omission of ignorance, or of harry, or of editing?

I suppose we’ll never know, just as we won’t know what Turing would have done had he lived longer than 42 years on earth.

published September 11, 2009

Comments

  1. Asher Kay

    I thought that was very weird as well. When I think of Turing, it’s the computation stuff that comes to mind first.

    With respect to what Turing might have done — I have always wondered what sort of ideas he might have developed about neural networks if he’d had the machines to run them. I can’t help but think that, given his interest in the topic and the advent of those machines shortly after his death, we lost something of incalculable value.

  2. Michel

    I guess it could have been included but this is an apology, not an obituary. His work cracking the enigma code was the most important thing he did in his life. We may recognize his contributions to computing but we must thank him for what he did as a cryptanalyst.

    And it’s very difficult for us to understand current British views on the war. Pearl Harbor was bombed once on December 7th. London was bombed every day and night for two months, and was just a small part of the Blitz over all of Britain. Yes, being a war hero, in THAT war, is far more noble than anything else he may have done.

  3. Ian Bogost

    Michel, not even part of a sentence though, even in passing? Not even a word? After all, from a different perspective, its Turing’s computational work, not his cryptanalysis, that was cut short by the events leading to his suicide.

  4. Justin Parsler

    Speaking as an (English) Brit:

    1/ WWII lives on in the British conciousness as a time when we stood up for what was right and essentially sacrificed our dominance of the world for freedom yada yada yada. whatever the truth of that, politicians get brownie points (pun intended) when they mention that we won the war.

    Apolgising to a gay academic for ruining his life would make rather bad copy.

    2/ The Enigmna Machine is a VERY sore point over here cos there are a couple of US films showing how the USA did all the real hard work (capturing them off subs and so forth). The films bend facts a lot and really upset people over here (I am no film scholar and cannot reference I am afraid).

    3/ All of Gordon Brown’s press releases in some way manage to be wrong, ill formed or badly thought out. He might actually not be a bad PM, but we will never know because his PR skills suck badly. This is one of his better ones.

    In summary:

    It is totally possible Brown’s office did not know.

    Even if they did know, the WWII trumps everything.

  5. Michel

    Ok I think I see where you’re coming from now. The apology should not just be for how this war hero was treated, but for depriving the world of his genius and potential future accomplishments. Yeah, I’ll agree with that.