Critique Welcomed Alan Turing - the father of computing

Chris Dodkin

Chris Dodkin

West Coast Correspondent
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During World War II, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS) at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre.

He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the method of the bombe, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the German Enigma code machine.

This statue is made from half a million individual pieces of five hundred million year old Welsh slate, and is on display at Bletchley Park.

X-Pro1 and 18mm Lens
 
Interesting, Chris. The OOF ear almost looks like its moving.

(Are you there or did you take this shot a while back?)
 
He famously committed suicide by biting into a poisoned apple - he was a repressed gay - hence the Apple logo. Tragic story of a tortured genius. Nice statue and very nice photo, Chris.
 
Thanks chaps - been on my travels without Internet connectivity - shot this shot this week - fascinating place which is well worth a visit.
 
Excellent shot Chris. I really must get up to Bletchly Park. I read an article recently that suggeted that, although he was 'victimised' for being gay, there was reason to doubt that this resulted in his suicide and his death was due to his rather slap-dash nature and the chemistry of his home experiments. It is quite probable that his poisoning was actually an accident. Either way, a tragic loss.

BBC News - Alan Turing: Inquest's suicide verdict 'not supportable'

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Thanks Pete - Bletchly Park is a wealth of information, almost too much in fact.

The teams there and at the GPO did some amazing work during the war - truly groundbreaking work which moved the technology forward and shortened WWII.

Pity we decided to keep it secret, or in fact destroy it after the end of the war!! :(
 
Here are a few more from Bletchly

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The original house

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The rebuilt Collosus Computer

The originals were used to break the German's Lorenz SZ40/42 codes, and were the world's first electronic, digital, programmable computers. There were 10 in use by the end of WWII.

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B Block - Now used to house the main museum

B Block included offices known as the Testery, after the man in charge Ralph Tester, which were set up to exploit breakthroughs into the Lorenz cypher.
 
The statue is amazing!
 
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