Alan Turing was socially awkward, but his intellectual prowess allowed him to change the world for the better, leaving the design of the modern computer behind. He is proof that even if you are different, you can still make a huge difference in the world, no matter what others may say or do to you. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayAlan Mathison Turing was born on June 23, 1912. Since childhood, he was socially awkward and never really had any friends . Then he was accepted into Sherborne School. Sherborne was one of the first public schools in London. It was also an all-boys school. It was there that Alan met Christopher Morcom. At first, Turing simply called him "Morcom", but later he started 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 found the math classes they took, and the students in them, incredibly boring. They already knew everything that was taught to them. 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 gay and that he had no way of changing. He didn't try to hide it from anyone anymore, but he didn't tell people he was gay. He didn't want to be made fun of anymore. He didn't even tell Christopher about it for fear of scaring away his only friend and protector. But Christopher was always so nice to him and he must have at least had suspicions about Alan, so it was possible that he felt the same way as Alan. Perhaps that was 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 wasn't going to return to Sherborne. When Christopher was younger, he contracted bovine tuberculosis from drinking infected cow's milk. He had been in good health 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 now found himself without friends. Alan vowed to do his best to honor Christopher. Along 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 several times and was very proud of it, thinking that even if Christopher was no longer with him, it would make Christopher love him even more. They also had a stained glass window made in his honor in the church opposite 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 three years to install all the little pieces. That year, Alan was promoted to House Prefect. Part of the prefect's "job" was to punish the other boys. Alan usually gave this responsibility to another prefect because he couldn't stand it. He had flashbacks of being bullied by the other boys, some of whom he would have to punish. He thought this would make them want and feel the need to intimidate him even more. He also befriended another boy who had been beaten so badly that it disfigured his face.spinal cord permanently and required him to use a cane. We don't know what his name was, but we do know that he learned a lot from Alan and even once won the Christopher Morcom Award. We think he considered Alan his Morcom. Alan graduated and went to King's College where he studied Mathematics. Later he transferred to Cambridge. After graduating, he is offered a mysterious job at Bletchley Park. He was only told that he would work 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. He was going to make Christopher proud of him. He accepted the position. He was told that he would be one of the leading cryptanalysts to break Enigma. Enigma was a German creation, a way to create new codes every day without putting in hours of work that could be used instead to try to break the Allies' codes. The way Enigma worked was that there were multiple dials. The dials would change each day by automatically turning one notch. Once this was done, the letters would have changed and there would be a new code. Alan had convinced himself that he was smarter than everyone else during his studies. He believed that only he would solve and break Enigma. This proved to be a problem as he would be working in a team. The team was led by a man named Hugh Alexander. Alan didn't agree with Alexander's way of doing things, probably because it meant he couldn't do everything he wanted to do at all times. 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 seconds. A machine capable of thinking for itself. He had written his university thesis on this subject and had it published. He thought that if this machine could solve the riddle, then all the other cryptanalysts would leave him alone to work in peace and quiet. He started making a prototype and he named it Christopher because he applied a lot of what Christopher had taught him and how much he meant to him. His obsession with the machine caused his team to despise him. They needed his help to solve Enigma. By solving Enigma, they will have won the war against Germany. But to do that, 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 study all the letter substitution ciphers known to man. This would have been done much faster if Alan had stopped working on Christopher. Eventually, Alan began building his real machine based on the prototype. His colleagues weren't behind him on this, but he really didn't care. He worked better alone anyway. But while he was building Christopher, his boss threatened to shut him down if he didn't produce accurate results in the next three months. All his planning and time spent with Christopher would have been wasted, and worse, he would have, in his mind, disappointed Christopher. That's when Alan decided he needed help. Alan loved crosswords. It was one of the things that Christophe had introduced him to and that they loved doing together. Christopher was amazing at crosswords and could solve most of them in less than ten minutes, but as time passed and the more puzzles they solved, Alan became better at solving them, and soon enough, he was better than even Christopher. Over the years, he became convinced that solving crosswords was one of the best ways tokeep your mind strong. He believed that people who could solve very difficult crosswords in a short time could greatly help him build Christopher and, by connection, solve Enigma and win the war. He published a very difficult crossword puzzle in the newspaper and said: "If you can solve this problem in less than ten minutes, turn 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. They had six minutes to solve a crossword that took Alan seven minutes. Joan was the first to finish. It only took him four minutes. She and two other men were hired. We don't know much about the other men. We know that Alan loved Joan very much. She had shown the most promise so far and had given Alan some really good ideas on how to improve Christopher. She not only gave Alan advice about Christopher, but also about his social life, well if you could call it that. Joan was Alan's first real friend since Christopher and he knew he could trust her. They started having lunch together and Alan would go to the house where she was spending the night and solve problems together. Towards the end of the war, Joan's parents wanted her to quit her job and return home. They did not think it was appropriate for a single woman to live alone and work only 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 gay. However, a few months later, Alan told her about Christopher and told her that he could never be truly happy if he married him. This upset Joan, but she understood and never told anyone her secret because she knew what people did to gay 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 a spy. He was a loner who made no friends, in fact he made even more enemies. He was working on his own project but still felt entitled to know what was going on. His workspace was searched and most of his papers were seized or destroyed. Alan was devastated. He spent time not needed in the investigation redrawing Christopher. This investigation would continue for the rest of the war until they discovered that it was actually John Cairncross, an Irishman chosen by Hugh Alexander. He had been caught marking a verse from his Bible that appeared in a Russian telegraph. However, they still had suspicions about Alan. At that time, the other cryptanalysts decided that Christopher might be worth it and that Alan had the right idea. They decided that from now on they would help him, support him and offer him their advice. They started talking to him and being social. They continued working on Christopher, but Alan had borrowed a large sum of money to build it and the backers wanted results, but there were no results to show. They were no closer to solving Enigma. This upset their superiors and they were told they could not continue working on Christopher. On top of that, they decided to fire Alan. But that was not to be the case. Alan's colleagues decided that they had to defend Alan's machine. They believed it would work. They all have.