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Petition: Official Apology for Alan Turing

Posted on 18 August 2009 by Alex

Alan Turing

There’s currently a petition calling for an official posthumous apology from the British government to Alan Turing, often considered as the father of modern computer science. From the official petition on the British Prime Minister’s website:

Alan Turing was the greatest computer scientist ever born in Britain. He laid the foundations of computing, helped break the Nazi Enigma code and told us how to tell whether a machine could think.
He was also gay. He was prosecuted for being gay, chemically castrated as a ‘cure’, and took his own life, aged 41.
The British Government should apologize to Alan Turing for his treatment and recognize that his work created much of the world we live in and saved us from Nazi Germany. And an apology would recognize the tragic consequences of prejudice that ended this man’s life and career.

Alan Turing was the greatest computer scientist ever born in Britain. He laid the foundations of computing, helped break the Nazi Enigma code and told us how to tell whether a machine could think.

He was also gay. He was prosecuted for being gay, chemically castrated as a ‘cure’, and took his own life, aged 41.

The British Government should apologize to Alan Turing for his treatment and recognize that his work created much of the world we live in and saved us from Nazi Germany. And an apology would recognize the tragic consequences of prejudice that ended this man’s life and career.

If you’re a British citizen, do consider it and  enter your name for the petition. Read more on this, here, here, here, here.

1 Comments For This Post

  1. jiko Says:

    Don’t know if you caught it – but they have issued a public apology to the man. :)

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