Lake View East in Chicago in Cook County, Illinois — The American Midwest (Great Lakes)

Alan Mathison Turing

The Legacy Walk

Photographed by Andrew Ruppenstein, August 26, 2021

1. Alan Mathison Turing Marker

Inscription.
Alan Mathison Turning
Gay British Mathemetcian and Computer Scientist
(1912 - 1954)

During the Second World War, Alan Turing worked at Britain's code-breaking center where he was responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. Using the computational “Turing Machine” methodology he invented in 1936, Turing is credited with breaking the Nazi “Enigma Code” which had been used to coordinate the U-boat juggernaut that sank hundreds of ships in the North Atlantic ferrying vital supplies to the European theater of the war. With supply lines finally opened, the stage was set for the successful D-Day landing at Normandy, turning the war to the Allies favor, leading to the defeat of Adolf Hitler. In 1947 Turing began to muse publicly about the concept of “machine intelligence” and, in 1950, published “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” where he first set out to devise what would come to be known as the “Turing Test” for Artificial Intelligence. Brilliantly realized and elegantly simple, the Turing Test remains the benchmark in the quest to determine when a computer becomes “self-aware.” In 1999, TIME magazine named Turing

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one of the 100 most influential scientists of the 20th century, stating that "everyone who taps at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working on an incarnation of a ‘Turing Machine’." Turing lived in an era when homosexuality was still both illegal and officially considered a mental illness. In 1952, after being arrested for admitting to a sexual liaison with another man, he was convicted and sentenced to chemical castration. Two weeks before his 42nd birthday he bit into an apple laced with cyanide and ended his life. The tragedy of Turing’s suicide is trumped only by the loss to humanity that his death dealt to the field of Computer Science. Given all that he accomplished, it is impossible to overstate the potential magnitude of his unrealized contributions. Acknowledging Turing’s legacy, on September 10, 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued an official apology for the government’s treatment of Alan Turing after the war. He was officially pardoned by Queen Elizabeth in December 2013

Erected 2012 by The Legacy Project.

Topics and series. This historical marker is listed in this

Alan Mathison Turing Marker - wide view image. Click for full size.

Photographed by Andrew Ruppenstein, August 26, 2021

2. Alan Mathison Turing Marker - wide view

The Turing marker is visible here on the rainbow pylon that it shares with a marker for Reinaldo Arenas.

topic list: Science & Medicine. In addition, it is included in the The Legacy Walk series list. A significant historical date for this entry is June 23, 1912.

Location. 41° 56.585′ N, 87° 38.957′ W. Marker is in Chicago, Illinois, in Cook County. It is in Lake View East. It is on North Halsted Street north of West Buckingham Place. Touch for map. Marker is at or near this postal address: 3345 North Halsted Street, Chicago IL 60657, United States of America. Touch for directions.

Regionally, this marker is in the American Midwest.

Globally, it is in North America,

on the Great Lakes,

in the Western Hemisphere,

in the Western World,

and in the Anglosphere.

Historically, it finds itself in what was once the Viceroyalty of New France,

the territory of the Mississippian Culture,

and the Northwest Territory.

Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within walking distance of this marker: Reinaldo Arenas (here, next to this marker); Keith Haring (a few steps from this marker); Walt Whitman (a few steps from this marker); Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (within shouting distance of this marker); Cole Porter (about 300 feet away, measured in a

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direct line); Dr. Sally K. Ride (about 300 feet away); Bayard Rustin (about 300 feet away); Pauli Murray (about 400 feet away). Touch for a list and map of all markers in Chicago.

Also see . . .
1. Alan Turing (Wikipedia).

'Alan Mathison Turing OBE FRS (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence.'

(Submitted on November 16, 2021.)

2. Alan Turing - Celebrating the life of a genius (YouTube, 8 min.). "Saturday 23 June 2012 marks the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing - mathematical genius, hero of the WWII code breakers of Bletchley Park, and father of modern computing. Alan Turing was a mathematician, cryptographer and pioneer of computer science who possessed one of the greatest brains of the 20th century. His life was one of secret triumphs shadowed by public tragedy. Presented by Dr James Grime, Enigma Project Officer at the(Cambridge) University's Millenium Mathematics Project" (Submitted on November 16, 2021.)

Additional keywords. lgbt lgbtq

Credits. This page was last revised on January 30, 2023. It was originally submitted on November 16, 2021, by Andrew Ruppenstein of Lamorinda, California. This page has been viewed 372 times since then and 40 times this year. Photos: 1, 2. submitted on November 16, 2021, by Andrew Ruppenstein of Lamorinda, California.