Alan Turing, Brilliant Mathematician and Code Breaker, Will Be Finally Pardoned by British Government

“Alan Tur­ing, the Enig­ma code­break­er who took his own life after being con­vict­ed of gross inde­cen­cy under anti-homo­sex­u­al­i­ty leg­is­la­tion, is to be giv­en a posthu­mous par­don,” writes The Guardian today. One of the great math­e­mati­cians of the last cen­tu­ry, Tur­ing laid the foun­da­tions for com­put­er sci­ence and played a key role in break­ing the Nazi Enig­ma code dur­ing World War II. Despite his con­tri­bu­tions to defend­ing Britain, Tur­ing was pros­e­cut­ed in 1952 for engag­ing in homo­sex­u­al acts under an 1885 law that led to the con­vic­tions of 49,000 gay men, includ­ing Oscar Wilde. It’s a sad tale that gets recount­ed by anoth­er com­put­er pio­neer Jaron Lanier here:

For years, sup­port­ers have called upon the British gov­ern­ment to issue a posthu­mous par­don. And while British Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Brown apol­o­gized in 2010 for “the appalling way [Tur­ing] was treat­ed,” mem­bers of the House of Lords resist­ed issu­ing an actu­al par­don as recent­ly as last year. But, accord­ing to The Guardian, leg­is­la­tors are pre­pared to pass a new bill as ear­ly as this Octo­ber. As many of our read­ers will be quick to point out, the con­cept  of a par­don is a bit strange, see­ing that Tur­ing did noth­ing wrong. But the will­ing­ness of the gov­ern­ment to effec­tive­ly nul­li­fy the con­vic­tion and reject an archa­ic law is a wel­comed piece of news.

via @phi­los­o­phy­bites

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the 1996 Film, Break­ing the Code, Star­ring Derek Jaco­bi

The Enig­ma Machine: How Alan Tur­ing Helped Break the Unbreak­able Nazi Code

N Is a Num­ber: A Por­trait of Paul Erdős, the Most Pro­lif­ic Math­e­mati­cian of the 20th Cen­tu­ry