Yesterday, I reported on the the restoration of the world’s
oldest, still-working modern computer. Last night, British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown apologized for the country’s treatment of
Alan Turing, computer pioneer. In the words of Brown’s
statement: Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most
famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is
no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding
contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been
very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can
point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of
war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more
horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In
1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ – in effect, tried
for being gay. His sentence – and he was faced with the
miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical castration by
a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life
just two years later.” It might be considered tha