Turing was captivated by the potential of the computer he had conceived. Although his 1936 work had shown the absolute limitations of the computable, he had become fascinated by what Turing machines could do, rather than by what they could not. He had long abandoned his youthful expectations of finding free will or free spirits through quantum mechanics. His later thought was strongly determinist and atheistic in character. And by the end of the Second World War he had turned against the tentative idea that there were steps of 'intuition' in human thought corresponding to uncomputable operations. Instead, he held that the computer would offer unlimited scope for practical progress towards embodying intelligence in an artificial form.
anonymous on 04 Nov 10Not sure if this is correct, but when I searched some blogs for Alan Turing, a large number of the hits on the first page mentioned the fact that he was gay.
Daniel Zappala on 04 Nov 10Yes, Alan Turing was homosexual, and he was convicted of it since it was illegal in the UK at the time. He was given a choice of prison or chemical castration and chose the latter. He lost his security clearance and was unable to continue his cryptography work for the government. Several years later he committed suicide. It's a sad story of how gays have been treated in the past despite their contributions to society.
