Alan Turing, who is considered to be the father of computing and the man who tackled the problem of decoding German naval enigma would have celebrated his 100th birthday today.
Google marked the occasion in their usual fashion, with an interactive doodle based on the Turing Machine which was first described by Turing in 1936.
A Turing machine is a device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules. Despite its simplicity, a Turing machine can be adapted to simulate the logic of any computer algorithm, and is particularly useful in explaining the functions of a CPU inside a computer.
Source : Wikipedia
By solving the puzzle you light up the letters which make up the Google logo.
The Olympic Torch will also stop at Turing’s statue as it passes through Manchester as well as other events which have been going on across the country (and the world) through out the year.
Unfortunately Turing’s life and career were tragically cut short when he was tried and convicted of being a homosexual (which at the time was a crime punished by a spell in prison) and despite his efforts in winning the War he lost his security clearance. He later committed suicide by eating a poisoned apple. It took until 2009 for an official Government apology but campaigns to grant Turing a posthumous pardon for his ‘crime’ have been rejected by the House of Lords.
An interesting and little known (and completely wrong) trivia fact is the belief that Apples logo is based on Turing’s method of suicide. This has been denied by Apple but viewers of the quiz show Qi may know that presenter Stephen Fry has spoke of a conversation he had with Steve Jobs, when asked about the story Jobs replied “It isn’t true, but God, we wish it were!”
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YouTube video showing all of the answers