Alan Turing (1912-1954)

Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS (23rd June 1912 - 7th June 1954), was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science and providing a formalization of the concept of the algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, playing a significant role in the creation of the modern computer. During the Second World War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre. For a time he was head of Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. 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 Enigma machine. After the war he worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he created one of the first designs for a stored-program computer, the ACE.