Alan Mathison Turing Biography and Timeline — Page 2

Hut 8 Leadership

Heads Hut 8 during the early development of systematic methods for breaking German Naval Enigma.

Role range: 1939-1945

Enigma Machine

Uses captured German naval cryptographic material to strengthen Hut 8 attacks on U-boat Enigma.

Role range: 1939-1945

Dolphin U-boat Key

Hut 8 work, including Turings methods, helps make the German U-boat key Dolphin readable on a near-daily basis during the summer.

Role range: 1939-1945

Enigma Machine

Has set up a good working system for decrypting Enigma signals but there were only a few bombes so not enough time to translate all the signals, in the summer there was considerable success and shipping losses had fallen to under 100,000 tons a month

Role range: 1939-1945

Marriage

Turing proposes marriage to Hut 8 co-worker Joan Clarke, a fellow mathematician and cryptanalyst, but their engagement is short-lived after admitting his homosexuality to his fiancee, who is reportedly "unfazed" by the revelation, Turing decides that he cannot not go through with the marriage

Role range: 1939-1945

Enigma Machine

Churchill then wrote a memo to General Ismay which read: "ACTION THIS DAY.

Role range: 1939-1945

Enigma Machine

Make sure they have all they want on extreme priority and report to me that this has been done.", more than two hundred bombes were in operation by the end of the war.

Role range: 1939-1945

Enigma Machine

Writes directly to Churchill spelling out his difficulties emphasising how small the need is compared with the vast expenditure of men and money by the forces and compared with the level of assistance they could offer.

Role range: 1939-1945

Naval Enigma Memorandum

Writes technical material for American cryptanalysts explaining methods used against German Naval Enigma.

Role range: 1939-1945

Sequential Statistical Analysis

Develops statistical reasoning for Banburismus that becomes an original contribution to sequential analysis.

Role range: 1939-1945

Enigma Machine

Faces the loss of readable U-boat traffic when four-rotor Naval Enigma creates the Shark blackout.

Role range: 1939-1945

United States Cryptographic Mission

Leaves Britain for the United States to assist cooperation on high-speed Bombe development and secure communications.

Role range: 1939-1945

Fish Cipher Statistics

Applies statistical analysis to the Fish cipher problem, influencing later mechanised attacks on Lorenz traffic.

Role range: 1939-1945

Turingery

Develops a statistical technique later called Turingery for attacking German Lorenz teleprinter cipher traffic.

Role range: 1939-1945

Hanslope Park Assignment

Moves to Hanslope Park to work on secure voice communications rather than returning to full-time Hut 8 work.

Role range: 1939-1945

Return from United States

Returns to Britain after his American cryptographic and secure-speech mission.

Role range: 1939-1945

Bell Labs Secure Speech

Studies secure voice communications at Bell Laboratories while in the United States.

Role range: 1939-1945

Delilah Project

Begins work with Donald Bayley on the portable secure-speech system code-named Delilah.

Role range: 1939-1945

Delilah Voice Encoder Design

Designs a system intended to encipher speech for transmission by telephone line or short-distance radio.

Role range: 1939-1945

Donald Bayley Collaboration

Works closely with engineer Donald Bayley on electronics, experiments and circuitry for Delilah.

Role range: 1939-1945

US Navy Bombe Consultation

Works with American cryptographic specialists on high-speed Bombe technology for attacking Enigma traffic.

Role range: 1939-1945

Delilah Prototype

Completes experimental work leading to a functioning prototype of the Delilah secure voice encoder.

Role range: 1939-1945

Voice Radio Encryption

Tests Delilah concepts for secure speech transmission over telephone lines and VHF radio links.

Role range: 1939-1945

Automatic Computing Engine Project

Takes responsibility for developing the concept that becomes the Automatic Computing Engine project.

Electronic Stored Program Vision

Applies his universal-machine ideas to the practical design of an electronic stored-program computer.

National Physical Laboratory

Joins the National Physical Laboratory to work on the design of a new electronic computer.

History of Hut 8

Writes a historical and technical account of Hut 8 Naval Enigma work through December 1941.

Role range: 1939-1945

OBE

Turing is awarded the OBE by King George VI for his wartime services, but his work remains secret for many years

Role range: 1939-1945

ACE

Works on the design of the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine) at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL)presents a paper which was the first detailed design of a stored-program computer

ACE Architecture Accepted

NPL accepts Turings technical architecture for the Automatic Computing Engine.

ACE Delay Line Memory

Designs ACE around mercury acoustic delay-line storage, then considered a practical high-speed electronic memory technology.

ACE High Speed Design

Prioritises very high processing speed and efficient instruction execution in the ACE design.

ACE Instruction System

Develops an instruction system intended to make efficient use of ACE memory and electronic arithmetic units.

ACE Stored Program Architecture

Specifies a computer in which instructions and numerical data are held in electronic memory for automatic execution.

Computer Design Lectures

Begins giving lectures on electronic computer design and the principles underlying the proposed ACE.

Automatic Computing Engine Lecture

Lectures on the Automatic Computing Engine and explains how electronic machinery can implement general-purpose computation.

Cambridge Sabbatical

Takes leave from NPL and returns to Cambridge for a period of theoretical research.

Computer Intelligence Lecture

Discusses the possibility of computer intelligence in lectures on machine design, anticipating his later artificial-intelligence work.

Neurology and Physiology Studies

Studies neurology and physiology while reconsidering how learning and brain organisation might inform machine intelligence.

Chess Program

Begins writing a chess program for a computer that does not yet exist