I just listened to a 20-minute radio segment that reduced me to tears. Alan Turing was a hero of mine long before I knew anything about autism. Once I discovered my own autism and began to be able to see signs of autism in people I knew, either personally or from reading about them, I began to nominate some of them to my own Autism Hall of Fame. Certainly Turing belongs there (in my mind at least).
Turing was openly gay in an era when that was illegal where he lived (in England), and he was also a War Hero, having cracked the German ciphers generated by their Enigma Machine. He met a tragic end; a life shortened by prejudice and faulty science. He may have had a lot more to offer the world; we’ll never know. He was clearly a genius whose insights transformed human society. The proof of that is before your eyes.
I’m sure many of my friends know the story of Alan Turing, but whether you do or you don’t, this podcast is worth a listen. Highly recommended.
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[…] the war, Dr. Minor worked on the Enigma project in England (I learned this long before I knew of Alan Turing), the code-breaking that helped defeat the […]