Communications of the ACM

helped deny Turing the public recognition given to other great scientists such as Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein.

This is disappointing to scientists
following in his footsteps, although
they do acknowledge that the Turing
Year was successful in raising Turing’s
profile to a limited extent. Christos Pa-
padimitriou, C. Lester Hogan Professor
of Computer Science at the University
of California, Berkeley, says, “One out-
come of the centenary celebrations is
that Turing is a little more in the pub-
lic mind; I see fewer blank faces when I
mention his name. This is a good thing,
as Turing is my hero. His opus is noth-
ing short of brilliant and he has made
more impact than anybody else. He has
changed the world in ways that gravity
did not, and he matches Darwin in terms
of razor-sharp, original thinking in the
face of an intellectual community with
opposing thoughts. Darwin, Newton and
Einstein are giants, but so is Turing, and
I hope he will gain a profile like them.”
In discussing Turing’s accomplish-
ments and the celebration of his birth
in London on June 23, 1912, it is im-
possible to disregard the U.K. govern-
ment’s proposal to pardon Turing
posthumously for his criminal convic-
tion for homosexuality in 1952, which
is believed to have contributed to his
suicide two years later. For many of
those involved in the Turing Year, this
and subsequent media coverage have
been a distraction and discordant
note in the proceedings, although they
have, ironically, served well in raising
the profile of the man in the scientific
spotlight. While many agree that Tur-
ing was hurt by the humiliation of the
conviction and would, in his quiet way,
have appreciated a pardon, the main
concern is that a pardon and its media
coverage should not be the lasting lega-
cy of Turing and the Turing Year.
With legislation expected to be in
place to support a pardon either at the
end of this year or early next year, and
the 2012 Turing Year spilling into 2013
and beyond, a larger legacy is described
by Cooper. “The future is not comput-
able, so we can’t see what will happen,
but the Turing Year has increased in-
terest in basic issues of computability
and engaged people who didn’t previ-
ously know much about Turing. One
spin-off is that as Turing becomes bet-
ter known, people will look at the con-
text of his work and begin to discover
others with an early interest in comput-
ing, such as John von Neumann.”
As well as such aspirations, the lega-
cy of the Turing Year includes a number
of artifacts, some of which, such as the
DVD of Codebreaker (an award-winning
drama-documentary film on Turing’s
life), will serve to keep him in the pub-
lic eye, while others, such as Cooper and
Jan Van Leeuwen’s book entitled Alan
Turing: His Work and Impact, will help
sustain scientific interest in his achieve-
ments for many years to come.

Sarah Underwood is a technology writer based in teddington, u.k.

At a commemorative event, lasers flash in morse code “thank you” to Alan turing and all who served in the Battle of the Atlantic. art: Craig morrison and Joel Cockrill. Photo: stephen king.