Alan Turing was socially awkward, but his intellectual prowess allowed him to change the world for the better, leaving modern computer design behind. It's proof that even if you're different, you can still make a huge difference in the world, no matter what others may say and do to you. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Alan Mathison Turing was born on June 23, 1912. Even as a young boy, he was socially awkward and never had friends. Then he was accepted to Sherborne School. Sherborne was one of London's first public schools. It was also a boys' school. It was there that Alan met Christopher Morcom. At first Turing simply called him “Morcom” although he later began calling him Christopher. It was Christopher who deepened Alan's love of mathematics. Christopher also introduced Alan to cryptology and astronomy. Both Alan and Christopher thought the math classes they took, and the students who participated in them, were incredibly boring. They already knew everything that was being taught. They had learned it on their own in their free time. Because of this, Alan and Christopher spent most of their time together. Alan believed that Christopher was his first, last and only friend. Alan began to fall in love with Christopher. It was at this time in his life that Alan began to accept the fact that he was homosexual and that there was no way for him to change. He no longer tried to hide it from anyone, but he no longer went around telling people he was homosexual. He didn't want to be teased any more than he already was. He hadn't even told Christopher for fear of scaring his only friend and protector. But Christopher was always so kind to him and must have at least had some suspicions about Alan, so it was possible that he felt the same way as Alan. This may be what Alan was thinking when he decided to tell Christopher how he felt about him when he returned from summer vacation. What Alan didn't know was that Christopher would not be returning to Sherborne. When Christopher was younger, he contracted bovine tuberculosis from drinking infected cow's milk. He had been quite healthy for several years, but during the summer holidays Christopher fell ill again. He died that summer without being able to say goodbye to Alan. This devastated Alan who was now friendless. Alan vowed to do his best to honor Christopher. Together with Mrs. Morcom, Alan dedicated an award to Christopher called the Christopher Morcom Award. The Christopher Morcom Prize was awarded to those who had excelled in mathematics and science that year. Alan won the award many times and was very proud of this fact thinking that even if Christopher was no longer with him, somehow Christopher would appreciate it even more. They also had a stained glass window made in his honor in the church in front of the school. The stained glass window was a beautiful picture of the night sky and all the stars designed by Alan and Mrs Morcom and it took them three years to put all the little pieces in. That year Alan was promoted to prefect of the house. Part of the prefect's "job" was to punish the other kids. Alan usually handed this responsibility over to another prefect because he couldn't stand it. He had flashbacks of being bullied by other kids, some of whom he had to punish. He thought that doing so would make them want him and feel the need to mistreat him even more. He also “befriended” another boy who had once been beaten so badly that his spine was permanently disfigured and he was forced to use a walking stick. We don't know howhe called, but we know he learned a lot from Alan and even won the Christopher Morcom Award once. We think he regarded Alan as his Morcom.Alan graduated and went to King's College where he studied Mathematics. He later moved to Cambridge. When he graduated, he was offered a mysterious job at Bletchley Park. He was told only that he would be working with some of the best mathematicians in the world. He thought this would be the perfect opportunity to show off his skills and prove that he was better than them. It would have made Christopher proud of him. He took the job. He was told that he would be one of the leading cryptanalysts to crack Enigma. Enigma was a German creation, a way to create new codes every day without putting in hours of work that could have been used trying to crack Allied codes. The way enigma worked was that there were different dials. The dials would change every day by automatically rotating a notch. Once this was done, the letters would be swapped and there would be a new code. Alan had convinced himself that he was smarter than everyone else during his college. He thought that only he would solve and break Enigma. This proved to be a problem because he would be working on a team. The team was led by a man named Hugh Alexander. Alan didn't agree with Alexander's way of doing things, most likely because it meant he couldn't do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. Alan decided he was going to do his own thing. He wanted to make a universal machine. A machine capable of solving any problem in a few seconds. A machine capable of thinking for itself. He had written his university thesis on it and had it published. He thought that if this machine could solve the puzzle, all the other cryptanalysts would leave him alone to work in peace and quiet. He started making a prototype and named it Christopher because it applied a lot of what Christopher had taught him and how much it meant to him. His obsession with the car made his team despise him. They needed his help to solve Enigma. By solving Enigma they will have won the war against Germany. But to do this they had to figure out what code the Germans were using, the problem was that the code changed every twelve hours. They didn't have enough time to examine every letter substitution code known to man. It would have been done much faster if Alan had stopped working on Christopher. Eventually, Alan began building his own real car based on the prototype. His colleagues weren't on his side, but he didn't really care. In any case he worked better alone. But when he was in the middle of building Christopher, his boss threatened to shut him down if he didn't produce accurate results in the next three months. All her planning and time dedicated to Christopher would have been wasted, and worse, she would have, in her mind, let Christopher down. It was at this point that Alan decided he needed help. Alan loved crossword puzzles. They had been one of the things that Christophe had introduced him to and that they loved to do together. Christopher was great at crosswords and could solve most of them in under ten minutes, but as time went on and the more puzzles they did, the better Alan became at solving them, and soon he was better than even Christopher. Over the years he became convinced that solving crosswords was one of the best ways to keep his mind strong. He thought that people who could solve a very difficult crossword in a short amount of time could help him a lot in building Christopher and, through connection, solve the Riddle and winthe war. He put a very difficult crossword in the newspaper and said: "If you can solve it in under ten minutes, show up at Bletchley Park for a top secret job offer." Six men and one woman showed up for the interview. Miss Joan Clarke was the only woman present. Six minutes were given to solve a crossword that took Alan seven minutes to solve. Joan was the first to finish. It only took her four minutes. She and two other men were hired. We don't know much about other men. We know that Alan was very fond of Joan. It had proven the most promising so far and had given Alan some great ideas on how to improve Christopher. Not only did he give Alan advice about Christopher, but also about his social life, well if you can call it that. Joan was Alan's first real friend since Christopher and he knew he could trust her. They began to have lunch together and Alan went in the evening to the house where she was staying and they solved problems together. Towards the end of the war Joan's parents wanted her to quit her job and return home. They didn't think it was right for an unmarried woman to live alone and only work with men. To avoid this, Alan proposed to Joan himself. He hadn't had a real friend since Christopher. He didn't want to lose Joan. At this point Joan did not know that Alan was homosexual. After a few months, however, Alan told her about Christopher and that he would never be truly happy if he married her. This made Joan very angry, but she understood and never told anyone her secret because she knew what people did to homosexual people. It was around this time that there was an investigation in Bletchley with Alan as the main suspect. There had been a spy for the Russians, who had leaked to them all the information they had found so that they could solve Enigma before the British. Alan had shown all the signs of someone acting as a spy. He was a loner who hadn't made any friends, in fact he had made more enemies. He worked on his project but still felt entitled to know what was going on. His workspace was searched and most of his documents were taken or destroyed. Alan was devastated. He spent time when he was not needed for the investigation into Christopher's redesign. This investigation continued for the rest of the war until they discovered that he was actually John Cairncross, an Irishman who had been personally chosen by Hugh Alexander. He had been caught underlining a verse from his Bible that had been in a telegraph sent by the Russians. However they still had suspicions about Alan. Around this time the other cryptanalysts decided that perhaps Christopher was worth it and that Alan had had the right idea. They decided that from now on they would help and support him and offer him their advice. They started to actually talk to him and be social. They continued to work on Christopher, but Alan had borrowed a large amount of money to build it and the donors wanted results, but there were no results to show for it. They were no closer to solving Enigma. This upset their superiors and they were told that they could not continue working on Christopher. On top of that they decided they were going to fire Alan. But it didn't have to be this way. Alan's colleagues decided that they should defend Alan's car. They believed it would work. They all swore they would leave if Alan was fired. If they did, Bletchley wouldn't have a single cryptanalyst, much less some of the best in the world. Alan stayed and continued working on Christopher. But the machine didn't work. They had everything in place, but something was missing. They still couldn't understand how the Germans changed the code like that.