Hannover - Alan Touring

With more than 500.000 inhabitants Hannover is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony.

Hannover was founded in medieval times on the east bank of the River Leine. It was a small village of ferrymen and fishermen. It became a comparatively large town in the 13th century, receiving town privileges in 1241, owing to its position at a natural crossroads. It was connected to the Hanseatic League city of Bremen by the Leine and was situated north-west of the Harz mountains so that east-west traffic passed through it.

In the 14th century the main churches of Hanover were built, as well as a city wall with three city gates.

Between 1714 and 1837 three kings of Great Britain were concurrently also Electoral Princes of Hanover.

As an important railway and road junction and production centre, Hannover was a major target for strategic bombing during World War II. More than 90% of the city centre was destroyed in a total of 88 bombing raids. So today Hannover lacks the medieval heart. Only a few buildings got rebuilt and restored.

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Alan Turing was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician and cryptanalyst. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer. He is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence.

Turing was gay and during the investigation at the police in 1952, he acknowledged a sexual relationship with a man. Homosexual acts were criminal offences in the UK at that time. He was charged with "gross indecency". He was convicted and given a choice between imprisonment and probation. His probation would be conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal physical changes. He accepted the option of injections of synthetic oestrogen. The treatment rendered Turing impotent.

Turing's conviction barred him from continuing with his cryptographic consultancy for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), though he kept his academic job. He was denied entry into the United States after his conviction in 1952.

On 8 June 1954 Turing's housekeeper found him dead. He had died the previous day at the age of 41. Cyanide poisoning was established as the cause of death. He was one of the most brilliant heads of computer science in the 20th century. I cannot imagine, where "we" would be in computer science if he would not have died at such young age.

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