Alan Turing (1912-1954)

Happy birthday Alan Turing (1912-1954)! its been the 100th birthday of Alan Turing, a man whose **HUGE** contribution to the history of computing has never been properly recognized. Turing developed the theory of modern computers in 1936 at the age of just 24: virtually every modern computer - the one I'm using to write this and the one you're using to read it - is based on the theory Turing set out. During World War II, Turing played a key part in the development of British code-breaking machines. When the war ended, he became interested in what's now called artificial intelligence: making computers that think like people. Today, Alan Turing is best known for inventing the Turing test (a way of seeing if a computer is "intelligent" by programming it to hold a conversation with a real person). [Photo of the slate bust of Alan Turing by Richard Gillin, published on Flickr under a Creative Commons licence.]