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1
00:00:06,161 --> 00:00:10,521
One day ladies will be walking their
computers in the park and saying
2
00:00:10,561 --> 00:00:14,961
'do you know, my iittie computer
said a very funny thing to me this morning'.
3
00:00:24,361 --> 00:00:28,321
In 1952, the greatest
mathematician of his time
4
00:00:28,361 --> 00:00:32,681
the man who gave birth to the
computer age was in torment.
5
00:00:35,401 --> 00:00:37,441
He was a recently convicted criminal.
6
00:00:40,081 --> 00:00:42,761
In distress, he turned to a psychiatrist.
7
00:00:43,481 --> 00:00:46,121
So what did you say to the police?
8
00:00:46,601 --> 00:00:49,321
I told them I'd been having
an affair with Arnold Murray
9
00:00:49,361 --> 00:00:52,281
and that he'd given my
address to a young man
10
00:00:52,321 --> 00:00:54,841
who was known to burgle
men he'd met for sex.
11
00:00:57,281 --> 00:00:59,281
This man was Alan Turing.
12
00:01:00,681 --> 00:01:04,881
Just a few years before, he'd helped
to turn the course of World War Two
13
00:01:07,121 --> 00:01:10,121
by cracking Germany's
secret military codes.
14
00:01:11,921 --> 00:01:16,001
Turing is one of the great original
thinkers of the 20th century.
15
00:01:16,761 --> 00:01:19,601
He had thoughts that
nobody else was having.
16
00:01:23,281 --> 00:01:26,721
Ten years earlier, he'd laid down
the foundations for the computer.
17
00:01:28,641 --> 00:01:31,201
There's often a seed
that everything came from.
18
00:01:32,841 --> 00:01:36,681
Alan Turing basically came up with
everything that computers do today.
19
00:01:39,161 --> 00:01:43,361
During his lifetime, Turing's
achievements went unrecognised.
20
00:01:43,401 --> 00:01:45,761
Instead he was disgraced.
21
00:01:46,441 --> 00:01:49,241
But I can't get it outside myself to do it.
22
00:01:49,281 --> 00:01:51,281
We all have decisions to make.
23
00:01:51,321 --> 00:01:52,521
What are you saying?
24
00:01:52,561 --> 00:01:54,641
I wish they'd leave me alone.
25
00:01:54,681 --> 00:01:57,801
This film tells the story of Alan Turing
26
00:01:58,241 --> 00:02:01,681
and how his ideas changed our world.
27
00:02:02,681 --> 00:02:04,641
You may have something there, doctor.
28
00:02:32,081 --> 00:02:36,601
The psychiatrist Alan Turing sought
help from was Doctor Franz Greenbaum
29
00:02:36,641 --> 00:02:40,281
a German Jew who had fled to Britain
just before World War Two.
30
00:02:41,881 --> 00:02:43,841
Presumably you'd like me to stop as well
31
00:02:43,881 --> 00:02:46,081
but I can tell you now,
there's little point in trying.
32
00:02:46,761 --> 00:02:48,961
Like you to stop what?
33
00:02:49,521 --> 00:02:51,721
Pursuing... male...
34
00:02:51,761 --> 00:02:53,401
Male?
35
00:02:54,441 --> 00:02:55,961
Companionship.
36
00:02:56,721 --> 00:02:59,321
We're not here for me,
you're here for you.
37
00:03:00,161 --> 00:03:03,641
It doesn't matter to me what you do
as long as you're not in conflict over it.
38
00:03:05,401 --> 00:03:14,401
Our father Franz Greenbaum
was treating Alan in the early 1950s.
39
00:03:15,441 --> 00:03:19,761
He turned up in the most extraordinary
clothes when he came.
40
00:03:19,801 --> 00:03:22,801
He looked as though he'd
been out of a rag bag.
41
00:03:25,281 --> 00:03:30,881
I don't think our Dad was
in any way prejudiced...
42
00:03:31,521 --> 00:03:34,601
towards homosexuality.
- Oh, I'm sure he wasn't. No.
43
00:03:34,641 --> 00:03:41,081
At that time, in England,
that was considered quite way out.
44
00:03:43,361 --> 00:03:46,641
So, how do we do this?
45
00:03:47,721 --> 00:03:48,881
We talk.
46
00:03:49,401 --> 00:03:50,761
What do I have to say?
47
00:03:50,801 --> 00:03:52,681
You don't have to say anything.
48
00:03:53,161 --> 00:03:56,241
But you should feel free
to say whatever you like.
49
00:03:56,521 --> 00:04:00,321
There are some things I can't say,
things you can't know, about the war...
50
00:04:00,961 --> 00:04:02,841
Things you can't even think.
51
00:04:03,561 --> 00:04:07,121
There are some things about which
I'm under an obligation
52
00:04:07,161 --> 00:04:11,721
a legal obligation, to remain discreet.
53
00:04:12,201 --> 00:04:14,721
Well, there may be things
that you feel you can't discuss
54
00:04:15,641 --> 00:04:20,361
but direct conversation is not the only way
that material gets conveyed.
55
00:04:21,561 --> 00:04:23,281
How else does material get conveyed?
56
00:04:24,281 --> 00:04:26,641
Through dreams, for instance.
57
00:04:27,361 --> 00:04:30,121
Well then, I certainly won't be
telling you my dreams.
58
00:04:33,321 --> 00:04:40,001
I am his nephew. That means that my father,
John, was Alan's older brother.
59
00:04:40,801 --> 00:04:44,361
John and Alan were sons of the Empire.
60
00:04:46,001 --> 00:04:49,961
Their father, my grandfather,
was in the Indian civil service.
61
00:04:51,041 --> 00:04:55,721
When my father was four years old
and my grandmother is pregnant with Alan
62
00:04:55,761 --> 00:05:02,521
they're sent back to England
and are left with a foster family
63
00:05:02,561 --> 00:05:04,481
and they don't see their parents again
64
00:05:04,521 --> 00:05:07,561
until my grandfather has
his next bout of long leave
65
00:05:07,601 --> 00:05:10,161
which is going to be in several years' time.
66
00:05:11,241 --> 00:05:17,521
I mean, I suspect that some of the
eccentricities or perhaps being withdrawn
67
00:05:17,561 --> 00:05:24,561
or being able to disappear into his own world
could be attributed to some of that.
68
00:05:48,721 --> 00:05:54,801
We're in the archive of Sherborne School
and this is a photograph from 1926.
69
00:05:54,841 --> 00:06:00,801
Alan Turing, who was then 14,
is on the far left on the bottom row
70
00:06:01,321 --> 00:06:04,921
looking at the camera very intently
with great concentration.
71
00:06:04,961 --> 00:06:09,161
You almost wonder if he was thinking
about the camera and how it operated.
72
00:06:11,681 --> 00:06:14,281
These are reports on his mathematics.
73
00:06:14,321 --> 00:06:16,721
'He has considerable
powers of reasoning
74
00:06:16,761 --> 00:06:21,401
and should do well if he can quicken up
a little and improve his style.'
75
00:06:22,841 --> 00:06:29,721
His teachers didn't recognise they had
a tremendous mathematical genius in their midst.
76
00:06:32,641 --> 00:06:37,281
This is the log book of the
Sherborne School library.
77
00:06:38,481 --> 00:06:42,641
We see
that he checked
out Alice In Wonder/and
and Through the Looking-Glass
78
00:06:44,481 --> 00:06:47,441
on 11th of April 1930.
79
00:06:48,401 --> 00:06:50,361
Interestingly, there are three
books he took out that day.
80
00:06:50,401 --> 00:06:54,161
Alice In Wonderland, Through the
Looking-Glass and The Game of Logic.
81
00:06:57,961 --> 00:07:01,921
There's this wonderful picture
that his mother drew
82
00:07:01,961 --> 00:07:05,241
called Hockey or Watching the Daisies grow.
83
00:07:05,881 --> 00:07:08,921
And there is Alan with his hockey stick
84
00:07:08,961 --> 00:07:12,681
ignoring the game, bending over
and studying the daisies.
85
00:07:13,721 --> 00:07:18,241
I think he's a bit of a loner. I think
there's evidence of that from early on.
86
00:07:20,241 --> 00:07:25,481
Turing was not someone who thrived
in social situations with lots of other people.
87
00:07:27,761 --> 00:07:30,721
He was very athletic
but his sport of choice was running
88
00:07:30,761 --> 00:07:33,441
which is of course a very solitary sport.
89
00:07:36,321 --> 00:07:40,081
He had one very great friend
who was a boy named Christopher Morcom.
90
00:07:42,201 --> 00:07:46,881
Morcom was, I think, more important to Turing
than any other human being in his life.
91
00:07:49,201 --> 00:07:54,361
Turing was probably, in an adolescent way,
quite in love with him.
92
00:07:57,201 --> 00:08:00,481
I think, in a way,
it was a kind of hero worship.
93
00:08:00,521 --> 00:08:04,681
I think he did idolise him.
I think he worshipped him.
94
00:08:10,721 --> 00:08:13,041
There was someone I knew at school
95
00:08:13,841 --> 00:08:17,001
someone who didn't
at all approve of dirty talk.
96
00:08:19,281 --> 00:08:22,281
Once or twice I tried to shock him
but it didn't work out.
97
00:08:23,281 --> 00:08:25,641
What do you mean, it didn't work out?
98
00:08:26,361 --> 00:08:28,561
He didn't take the bait.
99
00:08:29,001 --> 00:08:31,961
He was just... above it.
100
00:08:35,201 --> 00:08:36,641
He made me want to be good.
101
00:08:38,001 --> 00:08:39,521
He was in a different house.
102
00:08:40,201 --> 00:08:43,081
And boys in different houses
weren't meant to fraternise.
103
00:08:43,121 --> 00:08:48,281
So I could only see him on Wednesdays
when we both happened to be in the library.
104
00:08:50,161 --> 00:08:53,321
He would make fun of me
for my sloppy handwriting
105
00:08:54,481 --> 00:08:57,481
for mistakes I made...
the careless errors.
106
00:08:59,481 --> 00:09:01,601
He made me want
to improve my standards.
107
00:09:03,001 --> 00:09:04,841
He was an example.
108
00:09:05,441 --> 00:09:07,281
He was a friend.
109
00:09:08,161 --> 00:09:10,241
I didn't care about his example.
110
00:09:10,681 --> 00:09:12,601
What did you care about?
111
00:09:15,201 --> 00:09:17,681
I cared about what I was in his eyes.
112
00:09:18,481 --> 00:09:21,641
More so, in a sense,
than what I was in my own.
113
00:09:30,881 --> 00:09:34,241
Morcom's influence on Turing
was absolutely enormous.
114
00:09:34,961 --> 00:09:38,161
His importance was very,
very profound and very deep
115
00:09:38,201 --> 00:09:40,441
both intellectually and emotionally.
116
00:09:41,561 --> 00:09:46,721
Christopher was a great scientist with
tremendous gifts and tremendous curiosity
117
00:09:46,761 --> 00:09:48,921
curiosity to match Turing's.
118
00:09:51,121 --> 00:09:53,281
So they would often stargaze together.
119
00:09:53,321 --> 00:09:55,481
They were both very
interested in astronomy.
120
00:09:58,121 --> 00:09:59,561
They were more than just pals.
121
00:09:59,601 --> 00:10:01,601
There was a great intimacy between them
122
00:10:01,641 --> 00:10:04,881
but a very innocent... it was
entirely innocent of sexuality.
123
00:10:06,481 --> 00:10:08,961
I think if you find a person like that
124
00:10:09,001 --> 00:10:11,161
and I don't think
everybody does find one
125
00:10:11,201 --> 00:10:13,521
in fact I think it's terribly rare
126
00:10:15,361 --> 00:10:17,521
then all you thought before
127
00:10:18,441 --> 00:10:23,001
all your plans for yourself,
you realise they were just filling a gap.
128
00:10:24,761 --> 00:10:28,441
It was just something for you to do
while you were waiting for this person
129
00:10:29,401 --> 00:10:35,441
and everything you want to be
is something for him, not yourself.
130
00:10:39,841 --> 00:10:41,841
There is a drawback, however.
131
00:10:43,361 --> 00:10:48,241
Finding such a person makes
everybody else appear so ordinary
132
00:10:49,761 --> 00:10:52,121
and if anything happens to him
133
00:10:53,921 --> 00:10:58,641
you've got nothing left
but to return to the ordinary world
134
00:11:01,001 --> 00:11:03,961
and a kind of isolation
that never existed before.
135
00:11:12,881 --> 00:11:16,361
At the beginning of December 1929
136
00:11:16,401 --> 00:11:22,721
Chris and Alan went together up to Cambridge
for the scholarship examinations.
137
00:11:22,761 --> 00:11:29,241
And at that time, they were both hoping that
they would succeed and obtain scholarships
138
00:11:29,281 --> 00:11:32,721
and go on to study together at Cambridge.
139
00:11:33,961 --> 00:11:36,641
It wasn't known, of course,
it couldn't be known
140
00:11:36,681 --> 00:11:38,561
to Alan or to Chris
141
00:11:38,601 --> 00:11:43,321
that shortly afterwards,
Alan was to lose his best friend.
142
00:11:45,841 --> 00:11:49,481
Chris died on the 13th of February 1930.
143
00:11:52,881 --> 00:11:55,801
One friend put it quite accurately
144
00:11:55,841 --> 00:11:59,561
when they said, 'poor old Turing
was absolutely bowled over'.
145
00:12:02,481 --> 00:12:05,681
Chris had contracted
tuberculosis as a child.
146
00:12:06,721 --> 00:12:10,041
He suffered from poor health
all his life but he never complained.
147
00:12:10,081 --> 00:12:12,001
He was very private that way.
148
00:12:13,321 --> 00:12:15,281
When I heard he was dead
149
00:12:16,601 --> 00:12:20,081
the world threatened
suddenly to be so different.
150
00:12:21,481 --> 00:12:25,761
I found ways of dragging him around
with me to ease the transition.
151
00:12:27,321 --> 00:12:30,401
I wrote to his mother
a number of times.
152
00:12:31,441 --> 00:12:34,321
I made no secret of
the power of my feelings.
153
00:12:34,361 --> 00:12:37,961
I told her I absolutely worshipped
the ground on which he walked
154
00:12:38,001 --> 00:12:41,681
and she, being his mother,
found no reason to quibble with this.
155
00:12:44,161 --> 00:12:46,241
We shared in the loss of him.
156
00:12:48,521 --> 00:12:50,881
I asked her for a snapshot
and she gave me one.
157
00:12:51,601 --> 00:12:53,081
I have it here.
158
00:12:56,321 --> 00:12:57,561
See?
159
00:13:04,361 --> 00:13:10,321
This is a letter from Alan to
my grandmother, Chris's mother
160
00:13:11,001 --> 00:13:14,321
dated the 20th of February 1930.
161
00:13:14,921 --> 00:13:17,761
He said, 'During the last year
I worked with him continually
162
00:13:17,801 --> 00:13:22,881
and I'm sure that I could not have found
anywhere another companion so brilliant
163
00:13:22,921 --> 00:13:25,321
and yet so charming and unconceited.
164
00:13:25,881 --> 00:13:29,961
[Turing's voice] '/ regarded my interest in
my Work as something to be shared With him
165
00:13:30,001 --> 00:13:32,801
and I think he felt a little
the same about me.
166
00:13:34,121 --> 00:13:38,001
I know that I must put as much energy
into my Work as if he were alive
167
00:13:38,041 --> 00:13:40,441
because that is what
he would like me to do.
168
00:13:40,481 --> 00:13:43,481
Yours sincerely, Alan Turing.'
169
00:13:46,441 --> 00:13:49,121
My mother was very
worried at the time
170
00:13:49,841 --> 00:13:53,441
because I insisted that
Morcom was still with me
171
00:13:55,041 --> 00:13:57,521
working with me, helping me.
172
00:13:59,321 --> 00:14:01,401
He was my companion
173
00:14:01,841 --> 00:14:07,881
and in some ways he was an even
steadier companion after his death.
174
00:14:09,121 --> 00:14:13,401
I didn't want to frighten anyone,
but I knew he was still there.
175
00:14:18,841 --> 00:14:22,681
After Chris's death,
Alan was determined to go to Cambridge
176
00:14:22,721 --> 00:14:27,721
and in fact Alan did end up
with a scholarship to King's College.
177
00:14:29,121 --> 00:14:33,001
Turing felt that there was unfinished work
178
00:14:33,041 --> 00:14:36,721
which Chris had started
and which he wanted to continue.
179
00:14:39,081 --> 00:14:42,961
It was while he was at Cambridge that
he wrote what would prove to be
180
00:14:43,001 --> 00:14:45,401
I think, one of the...
181
00:14:46,321 --> 00:14:49,601
seminal papers in mathematics
of the 20th century.
182
00:14:50,681 --> 00:14:53,601
I don't think anyone, Turing included
183
00:14:53,641 --> 00:14:58,921
was remotely aware of the significance
that this paper was going to have.
184
00:15:02,561 --> 00:15:06,641
It introduces the idea of the computer.
185
00:15:17,641 --> 00:15:20,041
Well, in my mind,
the reason Alan Turing is
186
00:15:20,081 --> 00:15:22,761
well, one of the greatest
scientists of the 20th century
187
00:15:22,801 --> 00:15:23,881
is this paper.
188
00:15:24,681 --> 00:15:28,801
All our modern computers,
from laptops to video games
189
00:15:28,841 --> 00:15:31,481
are exactly what he
laid out in this paper.
190
00:15:42,641 --> 00:15:46,281
When Turing did his early work on computers
191
00:15:46,321 --> 00:15:49,361
the word 'computer' didn't mean
a machine, as it does now.
192
00:15:49,401 --> 00:15:50,841
It meant a person.
193
00:15:50,881 --> 00:15:53,841
It meant a person who calculates,
who computes.
194
00:15:56,081 --> 00:16:00,321
Hundreds and hundreds of young women
with mechanical calculating machines in a room.
195
00:16:01,281 --> 00:16:05,441
And they would do little bits of calculation
and write the answers down on cards
196
00:16:05,481 --> 00:16:08,201
and pass them along
to the next person in line.
197
00:16:08,241 --> 00:16:14,761
And so Turing is clearly starting to think
'can we automate the whole thing?'
198
00:16:14,801 --> 00:16:17,121
And the answer he comes up with is 'yes!'
199
00:16:19,081 --> 00:16:22,641
He was working on a mathematics problem.
200
00:16:22,681 --> 00:16:27,041
Almost incidentally to
a solution of that problem
201
00:16:27,081 --> 00:16:32,121
he did a construction that
he called the universal machine.
202
00:16:35,761 --> 00:16:38,361
And what that construction did
203
00:16:38,401 --> 00:16:42,601
was just change the way people
thought about computation
204
00:16:42,641 --> 00:16:45,321
in a very fundamental way.
205
00:16:51,121 --> 00:16:54,161
Turing's Universal Machine
was purely hypothetical
206
00:16:54,201 --> 00:16:58,201
but it laid out the fundamental principle
underpinning all computers -
207
00:16:59,041 --> 00:17:03,161
that any conceivable mathematical calculation
can be done by a single device
208
00:17:03,201 --> 00:17:06,201
shuffling ones and zeros back and forth.
209
00:17:11,241 --> 00:17:15,601
This is a model of his theoretical machine
from this maths problem.
210
00:17:16,281 --> 00:17:20,601
And the way this works is, he said,
you'll have some kind of processing head
211
00:17:20,641 --> 00:17:23,441
which is basically what
the machine actually is.
212
00:17:23,481 --> 00:17:25,961
It would be looking at a tape.
213
00:17:26,001 --> 00:17:28,921
And so we've got here
a tape with symbols on it.
214
00:17:28,961 --> 00:17:31,841
And the machine would have instructions.
215
00:17:31,881 --> 00:17:35,281
So as it reads different symbols,
it can move the tape forward
216
00:17:35,321 --> 00:17:36,721
it can wind it back.
217
00:17:37,561 --> 00:17:41,201
And it could generally process
the information on the tape
218
00:17:47,321 --> 00:17:50,641
And part of Alan Turing's
genius was to realise
219
00:17:50,681 --> 00:17:54,681
that a machine like this can
compute absolutely anything
220
00:17:54,721 --> 00:17:57,481
because anything can be
written as ones and zeros.
221
00:18:01,121 --> 00:18:04,521
And this is the basis of all computers.
222
00:18:12,961 --> 00:18:16,361
And the introduction of the universal machine
223
00:18:16,401 --> 00:18:22,081
made up of apparently
absurdly simple components
224
00:18:22,121 --> 00:18:25,201
a strip of paper, a pencil
225
00:18:25,241 --> 00:18:28,201
a wheel to move the paper left and right
226
00:18:28,241 --> 00:18:30,961
a set of very simple instructions.
227
00:18:31,001 --> 00:18:38,201
These apparently trivial devices turn out
to have the most profound implications.
228
00:18:49,001 --> 00:18:51,601
I've got here a generic smart phone.
229
00:18:51,641 --> 00:18:57,841
And if you crack this open,
inside it in the centre here is the processor.
230
00:18:57,881 --> 00:19:03,881
So this chip here does exactly what
Alan Turing described this machine doing.
231
00:19:03,921 --> 00:19:07,801
And on the back of this I have
the memory, which is the tape.
232
00:19:07,841 --> 00:19:10,521
And again it's exactly
what Alan Turing described.
233
00:19:12,441 --> 00:19:16,161
A single machine that can be
programmed to do virtually anything.
234
00:19:16,681 --> 00:19:21,041
In the coming years, it would be seen as
a moment of discovery, like Newton's apple.
235
00:19:23,001 --> 00:19:25,921
The digital age had begun.
236
00:19:31,641 --> 00:19:35,401
People credit Turing with
the invention of the computer
237
00:19:35,441 --> 00:19:39,921
because he invented the concept
on which everything else was built.
238
00:19:40,721 --> 00:19:42,481
[Archive footage narrator]
'In the electronics age
239
00:19:42,521 --> 00:19:46,921
the development of giant computers,
electronic brains, has been a key development...'
240
00:19:48,001 --> 00:19:49,681
He writes something that is so original
241
00:19:49,721 --> 00:19:54,961
that you can't categorise it into any of the normal
mathematical categories that are around.
242
00:19:55,001 --> 00:19:57,441
He started something genuinely new.
243
00:20:16,161 --> 00:20:18,441
When you look back
at something like computers
244
00:20:18,481 --> 00:20:21,441
there's often a seed that
everything came from.
245
00:20:21,841 --> 00:20:26,321
Alan Turing was sort of at the top
of everything that ever developed
246
00:20:26,361 --> 00:20:29,481
all the future research that was done
by people building real equipment
247
00:20:29,521 --> 00:20:32,321
that can clink, clink, clink - compute!
248
00:20:36,081 --> 00:20:39,881
One day ladies will be walking their
computers in the park and saying
249
00:20:39,921 --> 00:20:44,241
'do you know, my little computer said
a very funny thing to me this morning'.
250
00:20:46,761 --> 00:20:51,121
We have universal Turing machines
in hardware in our homes
251
00:20:51,161 --> 00:20:55,321
and we use them for dozens
and dozens of different tasks.
252
00:21:00,041 --> 00:21:04,361
Very few parts of our modern life
aren't impacted by Turing's ideas.
253
00:21:05,521 --> 00:21:09,201
The things that he contributed
to computer science
254
00:21:09,241 --> 00:21:12,201
weren't the things that just happened
to be true in one particular year
255
00:21:12,241 --> 00:21:13,921
or in one particular decade.
256
00:21:13,961 --> 00:21:16,121
They're the things that
are fundamentally true.
257
00:21:16,161 --> 00:21:17,801
So they're always goings to be with us
258
00:21:17,841 --> 00:21:22,321
in the same way that the things Galileo
and Newton contributed to physics
259
00:21:22,361 --> 00:21:23,841
are always going to be with us.
260
00:21:32,841 --> 00:21:37,601
All our modern computing
grew from this one idea of Alan Turing's.
261
00:21:37,641 --> 00:21:39,281
Incredible.
262
00:21:42,561 --> 00:21:44,961
But that would be the future.
263
00:21:45,001 --> 00:21:49,761
Back in 1939, Turing's brilliant visions
were interrupted by the shock of war.
264
00:21:53,201 --> 00:21:56,121
In 1939, with the advent
of the Second World War
265
00:21:56,161 --> 00:22:00,361
Turing was recruited to be part of a team
266
00:22:00,401 --> 00:22:04,441
who were involved in the effort
to break German codes.
267
00:22:05,481 --> 00:22:09,841
The centre of operations for this
code-breaking effort was Bletchley Park
268
00:22:09,881 --> 00:22:15,601
which was a country estate,
equidistant from Cambridge and Oxford.
269
00:22:15,641 --> 00:22:18,321
And also very easily accessible from London.
270
00:22:22,121 --> 00:22:25,001
It was a completely secret effort.
271
00:22:26,001 --> 00:22:31,641
There's never been a place
where secrets were better kept
272
00:22:31,681 --> 00:22:33,921
than they were kept at Bletchley.
273
00:22:37,081 --> 00:22:40,601
We were on our honour not
to talk about this and we didn't.
274
00:22:40,641 --> 00:22:43,241
My parents never knew what I did
until the day they died.
275
00:22:44,681 --> 00:22:48,561
It was an extremely eccentric
bunch of people who were recruited.
276
00:22:48,601 --> 00:22:51,961
There were mathematicians.
There was a British chess champion.
277
00:22:52,001 --> 00:22:56,281
There were people who had won contests
to do crossword puzzles in a very, very fast time.
278
00:22:57,521 --> 00:23:03,201
Turing was, in some ways,
the main architect of the code-breaking effort.
279
00:23:03,241 --> 00:23:06,441
You needed exceptional talent
280
00:23:06,481 --> 00:23:11,321
you needed genius at Bletchley,
and Turing was the genius.
281
00:23:13,681 --> 00:23:19,001
I regarded him with a certain amount of awe
because he was 'The Prof'.
282
00:23:19,921 --> 00:23:22,921
He was just regarded as very clever.
283
00:23:27,041 --> 00:23:31,801
The Germans were coding their messages
using what was called an Enigma machine.
284
00:23:34,641 --> 00:23:39,441
What you have here is a
German Enigma machine
285
00:23:39,481 --> 00:23:41,681
developed in
World War II
286
00:23:41,721 --> 00:23:45,801
to encipher messages between
parts of the German forces.
287
00:23:50,641 --> 00:23:52,521
The whole point about the Enigma machine
288
00:23:52,561 --> 00:23:56,481
is it could be configured
in a large number of ways -
289
00:23:56,521 --> 00:23:59,921
15 million, million ways.
290
00:24:03,321 --> 00:24:06,081
The German operator set the machine up
291
00:24:07,001 --> 00:24:09,241
keyed the message in which scrambled it
292
00:24:10,681 --> 00:24:12,801
transmitted the scrambled text.
293
00:24:12,841 --> 00:24:17,801
The other intended recipient had a machine
set to exactly the same settings
294
00:24:17,841 --> 00:24:21,961
and that descrambled the message
and revealed the plain text.
295
00:24:24,721 --> 00:24:29,401
The Germans believed that this machine
was completely unbreakable.
296
00:24:34,441 --> 00:24:38,881
Turing sat down with an Enigma machine,
and he looked at it
297
00:24:38,921 --> 00:24:41,561
and he thought I can break that.
298
00:25:02,001 --> 00:25:03,681
I had a dream.
299
00:25:04,201 --> 00:25:05,761
Oh, good.
300
00:25:06,641 --> 00:25:08,361
I didn't write it down though.
301
00:25:09,121 --> 00:25:10,881
You should write them down.
302
00:25:13,321 --> 00:25:15,161
What did you dream about?
303
00:25:19,401 --> 00:25:21,721
I dreamt about Joan Clarke.
304
00:25:23,001 --> 00:25:26,481
We worked together. I can't say.
305
00:25:27,121 --> 00:25:28,841
Of course.
306
00:25:29,441 --> 00:25:31,361
But, we were...
307
00:25:32,841 --> 00:25:34,441
It was...
308
00:25:35,161 --> 00:25:37,321
There was a war on.
309
00:25:39,161 --> 00:25:42,001
I 'loved' her.
310
00:25:42,041 --> 00:25:45,681
Or rather - I didn't not love her.
311
00:25:48,281 --> 00:25:52,801
Joan Clarke was a rarity at Bletchley.
312
00:25:52,841 --> 00:26:04,201
She was a woman who did the same work
and had the same status as male codebreakers
313
00:26:04,241 --> 00:26:06,641
but she was probably paid less.
314
00:26:06,681 --> 00:26:08,881
She was a mathematician.
315
00:26:08,921 --> 00:26:13,281
It was known that
she and Turing had been close.
316
00:26:15,561 --> 00:26:17,721
Joan and I, we...
317
00:26:20,321 --> 00:26:21,681
we went to the pictures.
318
00:26:24,481 --> 00:26:27,121
One didn't have to speak differently to her.
319
00:26:27,721 --> 00:26:29,881
One could be amusing, have a laugh.
320
00:26:30,241 --> 00:26:31,641
One didn't have to pretend.
321
00:26:34,961 --> 00:26:37,521
Anyway, I thought that
if she was so sporting
322
00:26:37,561 --> 00:26:40,241
one might just as easily
imagine her as a wife.
323
00:26:41,121 --> 00:26:44,561
So I proposed marriage
and she immediately said 'yes'.
324
00:26:44,601 --> 00:26:47,721
And just to be as sporting with her
as she was with me
325
00:26:47,761 --> 00:26:50,401
I told her straight away that I fancied men.
326
00:26:50,961 --> 00:26:54,961
And... this didn't bother her a jot.
327
00:26:55,761 --> 00:26:58,521
At least she gave no outward sign.
328
00:27:00,521 --> 00:27:06,961
It was a surprise to me when he said,
I think his words probably were
329
00:27:08,201 --> 00:27:11,041
'Would you consider marrying me?'
330
00:27:11,401 --> 00:27:18,161
He told me that he had
this homosexual tendency
331
00:27:18,841 --> 00:27:24,721
and naturally that worried me a bit
332
00:27:24,761 --> 00:27:34,921
because I did know that was something
that was almost certainly permanent
333
00:27:35,681 --> 00:27:37,241
but...
334
00:27:39,721 --> 00:27:41,161
we carried on.
335
00:27:43,481 --> 00:27:46,841
Turing was doing something that was
fairly common at that time
336
00:27:46,881 --> 00:27:49,041
which was, he was
going to make an effort.
337
00:27:49,081 --> 00:27:52,601
He was going to make a
sort of stab at heterosexuality.
338
00:27:54,481 --> 00:27:59,401
What was interesting was that he never
even reached the phase of marrying her.
339
00:27:59,441 --> 00:28:02,361
He realised very quickly
that it was not going to work.
340
00:28:03,441 --> 00:28:06,641
Did you never tell her that
you acted on your desires?
341
00:28:06,681 --> 00:28:07,841
No.
342
00:28:07,881 --> 00:28:16,041
Joan and I, we were interested in
how mathematics expresses itself in nature.
343
00:28:18,241 --> 00:28:22,441
I thought our wonderful conversations
would be enough for both of us.
344
00:28:25,041 --> 00:28:28,001
But a moment came
345
00:28:29,161 --> 00:28:33,281
when you realised you would never
be able to be as honest with her
346
00:28:34,881 --> 00:28:36,641
as she was with you?
347
00:28:37,721 --> 00:28:39,121
Yes.
348
00:28:41,961 --> 00:28:44,521
So I called it off.
349
00:28:45,201 --> 00:28:47,161
I knew it would hurt her.
350
00:28:47,201 --> 00:28:51,241
But it would hurt her
less than years of deceit?
351
00:28:51,841 --> 00:28:53,081
Yes.
352
00:28:57,521 --> 00:29:01,161
Turing was such, in some ways,
such an honest person.
353
00:29:01,921 --> 00:29:06,841
Most would've married and either
led a sort of secret life with other men
354
00:29:06,881 --> 00:29:10,441
or eventually divorced their wives.
355
00:29:12,041 --> 00:29:16,041
And what this suggests to me was a much
higher degree of self-awareness
356
00:29:16,081 --> 00:29:19,361
than a lot of other men
of his generation had.
357
00:29:22,161 --> 00:29:27,641
I learnt nothing about
his homosexuality at Bletchley.
358
00:29:29,001 --> 00:29:32,481
Turing was a very eccentric person.
359
00:29:32,521 --> 00:29:39,641
He would wear a gas mask as he
went into work on his bicycle
360
00:29:39,681 --> 00:29:42,521
because he suffered from hay fever.
361
00:29:43,681 --> 00:29:48,601
He often went into work
with his pyjamas under his jacket.
362
00:29:50,441 --> 00:29:55,761
This is the most eccentric thing of all:
he couldn't trust the banks.
363
00:29:55,801 --> 00:30:00,921
He therefore decided
he would buy silver ingots.
364
00:30:01,401 --> 00:30:04,561
And he would plant them in the park.
365
00:30:05,161 --> 00:30:07,601
But he forgot where he had planted them.
366
00:30:07,641 --> 00:30:09,961
And they have never been found since.
367
00:30:11,681 --> 00:30:14,681
For Turing, wartime Bletchley
was a paradise.
368
00:30:15,241 --> 00:30:17,521
It didn't matter if you were different.
369
00:30:17,561 --> 00:30:20,041
All that counted was
outwitting the Germans.
370
00:30:26,601 --> 00:30:30,761
The greatest threat to Britain's survival
was the war in the Atlantic.
371
00:30:31,921 --> 00:30:36,521
Convoys were being attacked
by German naval U-boats.
372
00:30:42,161 --> 00:30:45,921
It mattered because we
depended on sea transport
373
00:30:45,961 --> 00:30:51,481
to get an enormous amount of supplies
into the United Kingdom for the war.
374
00:30:53,761 --> 00:30:58,201
Defeating of the U-boats was the most
important task we had to perform
375
00:30:58,241 --> 00:31:01,241
and without it we wouldn't have been
able to win the war at all.
376
00:31:04,441 --> 00:31:06,161
We knew how important it was
377
00:31:06,201 --> 00:31:09,681
and we knew also that
when we were not breaking
378
00:31:09,721 --> 00:31:12,161
what the consequences were.
379
00:31:14,121 --> 00:31:21,321
We had somehow or other
to break the U-boat codes.
380
00:31:27,721 --> 00:31:33,721
Turing considered that the major way
of attacking Enigma cyphers was with cribs.
381
00:31:34,641 --> 00:31:37,521
That is known plain text, in modern speak.
382
00:31:37,561 --> 00:31:41,241
And this is where you could
guess the German text
383
00:31:41,281 --> 00:31:44,161
which the operator
had keyed into the machine
384
00:31:44,201 --> 00:31:48,281
in order to get the cypher text,
which you have actually intercepted.
385
00:31:50,161 --> 00:31:54,161
A crib might be something so simple
as a word that would often occur
386
00:31:54,201 --> 00:31:55,481
such as the word 'weather'.
387
00:31:55,521 --> 00:31:57,881
The Germans always reported
to each other on the weather.
388
00:31:57,921 --> 00:32:02,121
So the word 'wetter' - W-E-T-T-E-R,
became a very useful crib.
389
00:32:07,801 --> 00:32:09,521
Time was of the essence.
390
00:32:09,561 --> 00:32:12,521
And the conceptual breakthrough
that Turing came up with
391
00:32:12,561 --> 00:32:17,601
was: well, if a machine is being used
to code these messages
392
00:32:18,201 --> 00:32:21,801
we need to build a machine
to break the code.
393
00:32:26,121 --> 00:32:30,161
The machine, designed by Turing
and a colleague, Gordon Welchman
394
00:32:30,201 --> 00:32:32,121
was called The Bombe.
395
00:32:38,121 --> 00:32:40,521
There were over 200 of these machines
396
00:32:40,561 --> 00:32:43,521
working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
397
00:32:43,561 --> 00:32:47,001
looking for the settings on the
rotors of the Enigma machine.
398
00:32:50,961 --> 00:32:54,481
What the Bombe did
was to explore the relationships
399
00:32:55,641 --> 00:32:58,761
between the cipher text and the crib
400
00:32:58,801 --> 00:33:02,481
looking for the Enigma configuration.
401
00:33:07,001 --> 00:33:12,041
It would've taken people with pencil
and paper weeks to do that by hand.
402
00:33:12,081 --> 00:33:14,081
And the Bombe could do it
in a few minutes.
403
00:33:15,521 --> 00:33:20,201
Within a couple of years they were able
to read virtually all the Enigma traffic
404
00:33:20,241 --> 00:33:25,121
except for the traffic that
was pertaining to the Navy.
405
00:33:31,441 --> 00:33:33,121
The reason it was so difficult to crack
406
00:33:33,161 --> 00:33:36,601
was because the Enigma machine
used by the German Navy
407
00:33:36,641 --> 00:33:40,881
had even more permutations
that it put the letters through.
408
00:33:42,801 --> 00:33:48,161
Nobody had actually managed
to break the naval Enigma system
409
00:33:48,201 --> 00:33:51,761
and understand this extra level of complexity.
410
00:33:51,801 --> 00:33:54,841
And that was what Turing did.
411
00:34:04,961 --> 00:34:09,041
He realised that you could
actually use mathematics.
412
00:34:09,081 --> 00:34:12,241
That if you applied maths
to the codes and the ciphers
413
00:34:12,281 --> 00:34:15,721
then you could reduce the space
that had to be searched.
414
00:34:16,241 --> 00:34:21,201
You could then use the Bombe
to search those reduced spaces.
415
00:34:24,321 --> 00:34:27,801
He just took a large number of
messages which were intercepted
416
00:34:27,841 --> 00:34:31,841
and he sat down and played around
with these, pencil and paper
417
00:34:31,881 --> 00:34:33,561
and he worked it out.
418
00:34:40,681 --> 00:34:44,121
Suddenly, we could begin
to break the messages
419
00:34:44,161 --> 00:34:47,841
from the German high command
to U-boats in the North Atlantic
420
00:34:47,881 --> 00:34:49,961
and that was absolutely vital.
421
00:34:54,201 --> 00:34:57,161
We certainly couldn't have gone ahead
with D-Day when we did
422
00:34:57,201 --> 00:34:59,601
if we hadn't cracked naval Enigma.
423
00:35:11,321 --> 00:35:17,161
This ability to crack the code and thereby
read the German military traffic
424
00:35:17,201 --> 00:35:20,321
helped the allies strategically so much.
425
00:35:21,321 --> 00:35:25,241
Alan Turing's contribution
cannot be overstated.
426
00:35:26,481 --> 00:35:32,641
I think that Turing's own personal contribution
towards winning the war was crucial.
427
00:35:36,441 --> 00:35:38,481
At the end of the war
428
00:35:38,521 --> 00:35:41,521
we all left Bletchley without
being allowed, as it were
429
00:35:41,561 --> 00:35:45,161
to say anything about
what we'd been doing
430
00:35:45,201 --> 00:35:47,121
which I think was a very great mistake.
431
00:35:47,161 --> 00:35:48,881
I think we could've said more.
432
00:35:51,241 --> 00:35:56,881
Turing's contribution was virtually
unknown during his lifetime.
433
00:35:56,921 --> 00:36:03,281
And in fact, it took quite a few years after
his death before it eventually emerged.
434
00:36:04,561 --> 00:36:12,001
Somehow the step of recognising and
acknowledging and thanking him was skipped.
435
00:36:12,841 --> 00:36:16,641
He was treated abysmally
by his own government.
436
00:36:26,281 --> 00:36:29,881
By the time the war had ended,
a new age had already begun.
437
00:36:29,921 --> 00:36:31,761
The computer age.
438
00:36:31,801 --> 00:36:34,761
And Alan Turing was at the heart of it.
439
00:36:35,681 --> 00:36:39,841
In 1945, he designed one of
the world 's first computers.
440
00:36:41,001 --> 00:36:46,641
The theoretical ideas he'd laid out
in his 1936 paper had become reality.
441
00:36:48,681 --> 00:36:50,521
[Archive footage narrator]
'Manchester University
442
00:36:50,561 --> 00:36:52,681
where anyone who
urgently wishes to know
443
00:36:52,721 --> 00:36:57,161
Whether 2 to power of 127 minus 1
is a prime number or not
444
00:36:57,201 --> 00:37:01,281
can be given the answer
by an electronic brain in 25 minutes
445
00:37:01,321 --> 00:37:04,121
instead of by a human brain in 6 months...'
446
00:37:04,361 --> 00:37:08,881
in 1948, Turing joined the mathematics
department at Manchester University
447
00:37:09,361 --> 00:37:11,641
to work in a new computer lab.
448
00:37:14,001 --> 00:37:17,241
Computers had only just been invented.
449
00:37:17,281 --> 00:37:23,441
The prototype computer
was built here in Manchester
450
00:37:23,481 --> 00:37:27,881
and it ran its first program in June 1948.
451
00:37:29,041 --> 00:37:34,881
It was early years in the era
of using computers.
452
00:37:34,921 --> 00:37:37,561
[Archive footage narrator] 'The brain
at
present is only in the experimental stage.
453
00:37:37,601 --> 00:37:40,521
The answer being read
from a cathode ray tube.'
454
00:37:41,041 --> 00:37:43,401
Though by our standards
these computers are primitive
455
00:37:44,281 --> 00:37:47,761
they sparked an extraordinary
idea in Turing's mind.
456
00:37:48,601 --> 00:37:53,681
After a while, he started to wonder,
could a computer ever be truly intelligent?
457
00:37:53,721 --> 00:37:58,201
Can machines really think?
Even the scientists argue that one.
458
00:38:00,641 --> 00:38:04,201
He's obviously realised the
potential power of these machines.
459
00:38:04,241 --> 00:38:10,441
He can see where they're going and
he's tackling a basic philosophical question.
460
00:38:11,681 --> 00:38:13,761
Can a machine think?
461
00:38:15,561 --> 00:38:17,641
Why can't something
of a person remain alive?
462
00:38:21,121 --> 00:38:22,241
I'm not mad.
463
00:38:22,281 --> 00:38:27,041
I don't believe an individual consciousness
could be transplanted into a machine now
464
00:38:27,081 --> 00:38:29,361
though given a few years, who knows?
465
00:38:29,401 --> 00:38:31,401
But for now I only ask
466
00:38:31,441 --> 00:38:37,281
can we not house something like a human
consciousness inside an inorganic vessel
467
00:38:37,801 --> 00:38:42,321
something permanent,
so it will remain and learn
468
00:38:42,361 --> 00:38:47,401
and achieve something like wisdom,
a wisdom to which you and I can refer?
469
00:38:48,641 --> 00:38:50,961
Would it ease your grief
over Christopher Morcom?
470
00:38:52,441 --> 00:38:55,041
The creation of this machine of yours.
471
00:38:56,521 --> 00:39:01,481
No, no, yes, but not in the way you think.
472
00:39:01,521 --> 00:39:06,961
Not because I myself could vindicate Chris's
mortality by creating another intelligence.
473
00:39:07,001 --> 00:39:10,601
It wouldn't be Chris after all, so how
could it possibly provide any relief?
474
00:39:10,641 --> 00:39:11,721
No.
475
00:39:11,761 --> 00:39:17,081
But because it would show Chris
his living hadn't been in vain.
476
00:39:18,481 --> 00:39:20,961
That he would have inspired me
to create something
477
00:39:21,001 --> 00:39:23,881
an intelligence, not his,
but in his name.
478
00:39:24,961 --> 00:39:27,161
Something that would never die.
479
00:39:28,761 --> 00:39:30,121
There's no question
but that Alan Turing
480
00:39:30,161 --> 00:39:33,161
was the real father of AI
481
00:39:33,201 --> 00:39:34,681
of Artificial Intelligence.
482
00:39:34,721 --> 00:39:39,481
He was already making the argument that
there could be such a thing as a thinking machine
483
00:39:39,521 --> 00:39:41,721
an intelligent machine.
484
00:39:47,081 --> 00:39:52,401
Towards the end of 1950, Alan Turing
published a remarkable essay.
485
00:39:52,441 --> 00:39:58,041
And in this essay, Alan Turing
argued that it was possible
486
00:39:58,081 --> 00:40:05,081
to work out whether
machines possess intelligence.
487
00:40:06,681 --> 00:40:14,161
Turing's basic idea is that if you're
trying to decide whether something is intelligent
488
00:40:14,201 --> 00:40:21,081
it doesn't matter what's going on inside,
all that matters is the output.
489
00:40:23,761 --> 00:40:28,961
His idea was that computers,
if they can pretend to be intelligent
490
00:40:29,001 --> 00:40:31,481
then we may as well
consider them intelligent.
491
00:40:31,521 --> 00:40:35,001
He realises there's a whole world of
philosophical debates and arguments
492
00:40:35,041 --> 00:40:36,961
about what is and isn't consciousness.
493
00:40:38,201 --> 00:40:39,401
Frankly, he said
494
00:40:39,441 --> 00:40:45,081
if computer can convince you
it's acting intelligently, who's to say it's not?
495
00:40:46,521 --> 00:40:51,121
Turing proposed something
he called the Imitation Game.
496
00:40:52,201 --> 00:40:58,681
He imagines a machine
and a human and a judge.
497
00:40:59,161 --> 00:41:04,521
If a machine can convince
the judge that it's a human
498
00:41:04,561 --> 00:41:08,121
the machine should be
judged to be intelligent.
499
00:41:09,081 --> 00:41:11,521
That's the Turing Test.
500
00:41:12,601 --> 00:41:16,041
Turing is one of the great
original thinkers of the 20th century.
501
00:41:17,361 --> 00:41:19,921
He seemed to be able to see further.
502
00:41:20,401 --> 00:41:25,001
You get a feeling when you read his work
that his mind is way out in front.
503
00:41:26,921 --> 00:41:32,201
Until now Turing's work had been secret,
or comprehensible only to mathematicians.
504
00:41:33,361 --> 00:41:37,601
But his ideas on artificial intelligence
caught the public imagination.
505
00:41:37,921 --> 00:41:40,401
He was now being quoted
in the national press.
506
00:41:42,441 --> 00:41:45,001
[Turing's voice]
'
This is only a
fore taste of what is to come
507
00:41:45,041 --> 00:41:47,321
and only the shadow of what is to be
508
00:41:47,361 --> 00:41:50,521
but I do not see why it should not
enter any one of the fields
509
00:41:50,561 --> 00:41:53,081
normally covered by the human intellect
510
00:41:53,121 --> 00:41:55,521
and eventually compete on equal terms.
511
00:41:55,561 --> 00:41:58,361
I do not think you can even
draw the line at sonnets
512
00:41:58,401 --> 00:42:00,881
though the comparison
is perhaps a little bit unfair
513
00:42:00,921 --> 00:42:06,761
because a sonnet written by a machine
would be better appreciated by another machine.
514
00:42:09,001 --> 00:42:13,761
Turing was attempting to
demystify the idea
515
00:42:13,801 --> 00:42:19,041
that human beings have a sort of
exclusive ability to experience emotion
516
00:42:19,081 --> 00:42:21,641
to experience pleasure,
to experience pain.
517
00:42:22,601 --> 00:42:24,321
Very, very controversial thing to say
518
00:42:24,361 --> 00:42:30,921
because it was in effect taking mankind off
the pedestal that mankind had put itself on.
519
00:42:34,161 --> 00:42:40,721
The idea that robots and computers
challenge us with
520
00:42:40,761 --> 00:42:44,681
is their ability to imitate what we do
521
00:42:44,721 --> 00:42:49,161
and therefore it becomes more and more
difficult to tell the difference.
522
00:42:53,241 --> 00:42:58,881
What Turing's argument did was
to give computer designers ambition
523
00:42:58,921 --> 00:43:05,201
and everyone else a sense of the scope
and scale of what might well happen.
524
00:43:05,241 --> 00:43:11,121
Because, what he understood from his
wartime work and his work in the later 1940s
525
00:43:11,161 --> 00:43:16,681
was that it would be possible to make
systems of machines of unimaginable scale.
526
00:43:19,441 --> 00:43:22,521
They would develop,
they would have experience
527
00:43:22,561 --> 00:43:26,881
they would have careers and in a
very interesting way they would have lives.
528
00:43:29,841 --> 00:43:37,521
And that mixture of ambition and clarity, I think,
is one of Turing's greatest legacies to modernity.
529
00:43:42,761 --> 00:43:47,041
Turing's ideas on artificial intelligence
established him as a visionary scientist
530
00:43:47,641 --> 00:43:50,081
but there was more to his life.
531
00:43:57,481 --> 00:44:03,881
By the 1950s, Alan was in one sense
an ivory tower intellectual
532
00:44:03,921 --> 00:44:08,881
but in another sense he, you know,
he lived, occasionally at least, on the streets.
533
00:44:14,161 --> 00:44:19,081
In many parts of Manchester,
there were cruising areas for gay men
534
00:44:19,121 --> 00:44:23,481
where people could meet other men
from all classes and situations.
535
00:44:28,881 --> 00:44:34,361
For someone like Alan,
entering the gay scene, the queer world
536
00:44:34,401 --> 00:44:37,641
must have been intensely thrilling.
537
00:44:42,961 --> 00:44:46,961
Surrounding all this of course
was the threat of the law
538
00:44:47,001 --> 00:44:51,041
because male homosexuality
was totally illegal
539
00:44:51,081 --> 00:44:53,361
whether in public or in private.
540
00:44:56,121 --> 00:45:01,641
Turing, at a certain point in Manchester,
met a young man named Arnold Murray.
541
00:45:01,681 --> 00:45:07,401
Meeting Murray started this chain of
misfortunes that eventually led to his arrest.
542
00:45:15,241 --> 00:45:17,081
So what happened?
543
00:45:19,241 --> 00:45:24,521
I met a young man - Arnold Murray -
in Manchester. On the Oxford Road.
544
00:45:26,321 --> 00:45:28,961
He looked hungry,
so I bought him a meal.
545
00:45:29,961 --> 00:45:35,121
I gave him my address and later
he came to my home to see me.
546
00:45:35,161 --> 00:45:37,201
He spent the night.
547
00:45:37,801 --> 00:45:39,281
He was 19.
548
00:45:42,361 --> 00:45:46,601
He didn't have a privileged upbringing
but he has aspirations.
549
00:45:50,321 --> 00:45:53,001
I know in a sense he brought me down
550
00:45:55,121 --> 00:45:57,721
but I feel sorry because
I brought him down as well.
551
00:46:01,761 --> 00:46:06,321
I think Turing, like many other
men of his generation
552
00:46:06,361 --> 00:46:08,241
would've felt they were living on the edge.
553
00:46:08,281 --> 00:46:09,881
Not all the time
554
00:46:09,921 --> 00:46:17,001
but were aware that one step into the wrong
direction could push them over the edge.
555
00:46:20,201 --> 00:46:22,641
He would've been aware of the risk.
556
00:46:22,681 --> 00:46:26,681
Perhaps he wasn't entirely surprised
when disaster struck.
557
00:46:28,841 --> 00:46:31,161
I think he stole from me.
558
00:46:31,201 --> 00:46:34,321
A few pounds,
but I couldn't be certain.
559
00:46:35,201 --> 00:46:39,481
I accused him. He became angry.
I weakened.
560
00:46:39,521 --> 00:46:41,561
He spent the night again.
561
00:46:41,601 --> 00:46:44,681
This theme repeated itself
throughout our acquaintance.
562
00:46:45,161 --> 00:46:48,961
And then one day I came home
and found I'd been burgled.
563
00:46:53,041 --> 00:46:56,761
Alan invites this young man into his home.
564
00:46:56,801 --> 00:47:02,721
And the result of this encounter
or series of encounters
565
00:47:02,761 --> 00:47:06,841
is that my grandfather's pocket watch
566
00:47:06,881 --> 00:47:13,841
which was given to Alan
as a very special gift, was stolen.
567
00:47:14,641 --> 00:47:17,321
So I confronted Arnold.
568
00:47:18,521 --> 00:47:22,761
I believed him when he said
he'd had nothing to do with it himself.
569
00:47:22,801 --> 00:47:25,961
He'd been chatting
to a friend of his
570
00:47:26,001 --> 00:47:27,641
Harry, who was a proper renter
571
00:47:27,681 --> 00:47:32,001
not like Arnold,
who appreciated favours
572
00:47:32,041 --> 00:47:37,241
but would absolutely accept no cash
unless it was dressed up as a loan.
573
00:47:38,601 --> 00:47:44,241
Anyway, this Harry, he'd seen a letter
Arnold was posting to me.
574
00:47:44,281 --> 00:47:45,921
He'd seen my address.
575
00:47:45,961 --> 00:47:48,241
Arnold talked to him about me,
576
00:47:48,281 --> 00:47:51,641
told him that I worked
on the electronic brain.
577
00:47:52,281 --> 00:47:57,121
And this must have suggested privilege.
578
00:47:59,601 --> 00:48:04,281
So Harry concocted this
burglary in Arnold's company
579
00:48:04,321 --> 00:48:07,881
but Arnold did nothing
to warn me about it.
580
00:48:08,881 --> 00:48:11,761
In his defence, when I confronted him,
he spilled everything.
581
00:48:19,681 --> 00:48:22,121
Turing was such an honest person
582
00:48:22,161 --> 00:48:24,961
and he was so much
the opposite of calculating
583
00:48:25,001 --> 00:48:27,761
he was not Machiavellian in the least.
584
00:48:28,601 --> 00:48:29,961
He'd been robbed.
585
00:48:30,001 --> 00:48:32,321
When you're robbed you go to the police.
586
00:48:32,361 --> 00:48:34,881
He was naive, in a lot of ways.
587
00:48:35,401 --> 00:48:40,161
He had faith that the
system would protect him
588
00:48:41,281 --> 00:48:45,001
and that turned out to be a
disastrous misstep on his part.
589
00:48:46,481 --> 00:48:49,681
And of course the police then discover
that they'd hit the jackpot.
590
00:48:49,721 --> 00:48:52,601
They'd discovered that he had
a young man in his house
591
00:48:52,641 --> 00:48:55,641
and there couldn't be any sensible
reason for him being there
592
00:48:55,681 --> 00:48:58,881
other than something
which was criminal, disgusting
593
00:48:58,921 --> 00:49:02,881
and, you know, possibly a security risk.
594
00:49:07,841 --> 00:49:10,801
The police didn't care about the robbery.
595
00:49:12,001 --> 00:49:17,601
The police were much more interested
in arresting a professor
596
00:49:17,641 --> 00:49:20,201
on charges of gross indecency.
597
00:49:24,681 --> 00:49:27,721
So what did you say to the police?
598
00:49:29,241 --> 00:49:31,321
I told them everything.
599
00:49:31,841 --> 00:49:34,721
I told them I'd been having
an affair with Arnold Murray
600
00:49:34,761 --> 00:49:37,481
and that he'd given my
address to a young man
601
00:49:37,521 --> 00:49:40,361
who was known to burgle
men he'd met for sex.
602
00:49:40,721 --> 00:49:43,721
And you told the police
that you had sex with Murray?
603
00:49:44,081 --> 00:49:46,481
They asked me what we got up to.
604
00:49:46,521 --> 00:49:52,441
I told them we engaged in mutual masturbation,
soixante-neuf, and inter-genital friction.
605
00:49:53,121 --> 00:49:54,841
Soixante-neuf?
606
00:49:55,361 --> 00:49:57,041
Sixty nine.
607
00:49:57,081 --> 00:49:59,281
Yes I know what it means.
608
00:49:59,841 --> 00:50:02,641
I was just wondering,
why you would say that to the police?
609
00:50:03,201 --> 00:50:05,481
I told you. I revealed everything.
610
00:50:05,841 --> 00:50:07,561
I was wondering
611
00:50:08,441 --> 00:50:12,721
if you cloaked it in elitist language
to keep the police in their place.
612
00:50:13,121 --> 00:50:16,241
They're unlikely to speak French,
aren't they, the police.
613
00:50:17,641 --> 00:50:23,761
To say that they may be the foot soldiers
that are out there to enforce the law
614
00:50:23,801 --> 00:50:27,841
but you, who speak French,
are amongst the lawmakers
615
00:50:27,881 --> 00:50:34,801
the politicians, the inventors,
the forgers of new paths.
616
00:50:34,841 --> 00:50:39,801
I wanted my watch back,
my father's watch.
617
00:50:40,481 --> 00:50:42,321
I wanted them to do their job.
618
00:50:43,841 --> 00:50:46,361
But as soon as they knew
you were a sodomite
619
00:50:46,401 --> 00:50:49,281
you gave up your right
to command them.
620
00:50:51,161 --> 00:50:52,561
You became their prey.
621
00:50:52,601 --> 00:50:54,961
I didn't go down for sodomy.
622
00:50:55,001 --> 00:50:58,681
I'm sorry, I thought you
practised sodomy with Murray?
623
00:50:58,721 --> 00:51:03,001
For God's sake, would you stop saying
'practised sodomy' as if it were the bloody piano.
624
00:51:03,041 --> 00:51:04,441
And the charge was not buggery
625
00:51:04,481 --> 00:51:09,641
it was 'Gross indecency contrary to Section 11
of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885'.
626
00:51:09,681 --> 00:51:12,401
It was the same law
that convicted Oscar Wilde.
627
00:51:14,121 --> 00:51:16,681
It's good to know things are moving forwards.
628
00:51:17,161 --> 00:51:18,601
You're right, by the way.
629
00:51:19,241 --> 00:51:23,121
As soon as they learned I was a homosexual
the burglary more or less vanished.
630
00:51:25,401 --> 00:51:27,561
One of them actually said to me
631
00:51:27,601 --> 00:51:33,321
'if you consort with naughty people,
naughty things are bound to happen'.
632
00:51:33,361 --> 00:51:35,281
As if by having sex with another man
633
00:51:35,321 --> 00:51:39,441
it was fit and proper that burglary
should follow close on its heels.
634
00:51:49,561 --> 00:51:51,441
[Turing's voice]
Dear Norman
635
00:51:51,481 --> 00:51:53,721
I've now got myself into the kind of trouble
636
00:51:53,761 --> 00:51:56,921
that I have always considered
to be quite a possibility for me
637
00:51:56,961 --> 00:52:00,401
though I have usually rated it
at about 10 to 1 against.
638
00:52:00,881 --> 00:52:05,241
I shall shortly be pleading guilty to a
charge of sexual offenses with a young man.
639
00:52:05,841 --> 00:52:10,201
The story of how it all came to be found out
is a long and fascinating one.
640
00:52:10,681 --> 00:52:13,321
No doubt I shall emerge
from it all a different man
641
00:52:14,121 --> 00:52:16,721
but quite who I've not found out.
642
00:52:17,681 --> 00:52:21,481
Yours in distress, Alan.'
643
00:52:25,721 --> 00:52:31,281
In March 1952, Alan Turing
was convicted of Gross indecency.
644
00:52:31,321 --> 00:52:35,041
He'd become well enough known
for it to be a public disgrace.
645
00:52:39,921 --> 00:52:44,601
What the court ordered was effectively
to have Turing chemically castrated.
646
00:52:44,641 --> 00:52:50,481
That was to effectively remove his body
of the male hormone testosterone.
647
00:52:54,201 --> 00:52:59,521
He's given a choice. He could go to jail
or he could agree to this treatment.
648
00:52:59,561 --> 00:53:05,401
He chose the so-called organo therapy
which amounted to chemical castration.
649
00:53:08,881 --> 00:53:13,521
Turing was probably given a drug
that we now know as stilboestrol.
650
00:53:15,001 --> 00:53:19,921
That is a synthetic version of the
female sex hormone, oestrogen.
651
00:53:21,561 --> 00:53:23,961
He had to attend the
Manchester Royal Infirmary
652
00:53:24,001 --> 00:53:26,721
on a monthly basis
for the first 9 months.
653
00:53:28,521 --> 00:53:31,161
He had to take daily tablets
654
00:53:31,201 --> 00:53:35,681
and then for the final
3 months
an implant was put into his thigh.
655
00:53:37,641 --> 00:53:39,761
'Chemical castration' they call it.
656
00:53:39,801 --> 00:53:41,321
Very civilised.
657
00:53:42,801 --> 00:53:47,241
I take it every day and once a month
I get tested at the hospital
658
00:53:47,281 --> 00:53:50,961
to make sure I don't have any of that
naughty testosterone in my blood.
659
00:53:53,641 --> 00:53:56,361
It's meant to cure me of my desires.
660
00:53:59,681 --> 00:54:02,801
The kinds of the things that Alan Turing
would have experienced
661
00:54:02,841 --> 00:54:06,721
would have been an
immediate change in his libido
662
00:54:06,761 --> 00:54:10,081
his inability to get an erection.
He would have become impotent.
663
00:54:10,121 --> 00:54:12,721
His testicles would have shrunken in size.
664
00:54:12,761 --> 00:54:14,721
He would've stopped shaving.
665
00:54:14,761 --> 00:54:17,161
Over time, he would've grown breasts.
666
00:54:17,201 --> 00:54:22,641
And that would have been the distinctive signature
of somebody who was chemically castrated.
667
00:54:27,121 --> 00:54:30,441
He was told the effects
of the treatment were reversible
668
00:54:30,481 --> 00:54:34,401
and no doubt that was part
of the reason he agreed to it.
669
00:54:38,681 --> 00:54:41,921
The arrest was, I think,
a turning point in his life
670
00:54:41,961 --> 00:54:45,721
because it was at that moment
that for the first time
671
00:54:45,761 --> 00:54:52,361
he understood how untrustworthy
British society was
672
00:54:52,401 --> 00:54:55,641
and the he was very, very expendable.
673
00:54:59,241 --> 00:55:03,721
I think it was a demoralising experience
and embittering experience for him.
674
00:55:03,761 --> 00:55:06,081
And he was never the same afterwards.
675
00:55:08,921 --> 00:55:17,881
I mean what's going on, partly, in the
insupportable tragedy of Turing's fate
676
00:55:17,921 --> 00:55:23,881
is what happens when
deeply institutionalised English intellectuals
677
00:55:23,921 --> 00:55:27,161
encounter what life's like
outside the walls.
678
00:55:28,201 --> 00:55:34,081
They forget and cannot imagine
how evil and vicious life can be.
679
00:55:43,601 --> 00:55:45,721
Spring, 1953.
680
00:55:45,761 --> 00:55:49,721
Alan Turing had been visiting
Dr Greenbaum for six months.
681
00:55:52,561 --> 00:55:59,121
For some mad reason the number of petals
on most flowers is a Fibonacci number.
682
00:56:01,641 --> 00:56:04,801
Each number the sum
of the previous two, yes?
683
00:56:05,921 --> 00:56:10,641
1,1, 2, 3, 5, 8,13, 21, 34...
684
00:56:11,681 --> 00:56:12,481
So...
685
00:56:12,521 --> 00:56:17,321
Our father was very interested
with everything that Turing was doing.
686
00:56:17,881 --> 00:56:20,881
I think he recognised a genius.
687
00:56:20,921 --> 00:56:27,481
And in talking and sharing ideas,
it must have been fascinating for him.
688
00:56:28,761 --> 00:56:31,481
Cells don't have a mind of their own.
689
00:56:32,641 --> 00:56:35,521
But a clump of cells will split
690
00:56:35,561 --> 00:56:40,521
and eventually some of the cells
will become the backbone of a bird
691
00:56:40,561 --> 00:56:43,481
and some of the others
will become its wings.
692
00:56:43,521 --> 00:56:48,841
But how do the individual cells know
what part of the organism to become?
693
00:56:50,721 --> 00:56:54,521
So I asked myself whether there might be
some mathematical underpinning
694
00:56:54,561 --> 00:56:57,241
to patterns that occur in nature...
695
00:56:57,681 --> 00:57:02,401
like the spots on a cow
or the petals on this daisy.
696
00:57:07,761 --> 00:57:10,681
Turing had been working on
a revolutionary idea
697
00:57:10,721 --> 00:57:15,521
that mathematics can in principle describe
a process called morphogenesis
698
00:57:15,561 --> 00:57:20,561
the way shapes and patterns emerge
in living organisms as they develop.
699
00:57:22,761 --> 00:57:25,801
After the war, Turing got interested in biology.
700
00:57:25,841 --> 00:57:29,281
He got interested in plants,
and the patterns in plants.
701
00:57:29,321 --> 00:57:32,321
He was also interested in markings on animals.
702
00:57:32,361 --> 00:57:34,841
Why are tigers striped,
leopards have spots?
703
00:57:35,361 --> 00:57:39,801
And the idea that there could be
a mathematical theory of stripes and spots
704
00:57:39,841 --> 00:57:42,601
was something that biologists
just hadn't really thought about.
705
00:57:42,641 --> 00:57:45,081
And for that matter,
neither had the mathematicians.
706
00:57:45,121 --> 00:57:48,001
People did not put
those two things together.
707
00:57:49,041 --> 00:57:53,521
So Turing was right out on the forefront
of mathematical biology
708
00:57:53,561 --> 00:57:55,361
that's now become very important.
709
00:57:59,761 --> 00:58:02,841
What he did, he came up with
a mathematical equation
710
00:58:02,881 --> 00:58:05,921
that described how the patterns formed.
711
00:58:15,001 --> 00:58:19,441
If you look at tropical fish you'll see that
there are spots, there are stripes...
712
00:58:19,481 --> 00:58:21,561
How does that actually come about?
713
00:58:21,601 --> 00:58:26,641
And Alan Turing, in the early 1950s,
really began to attack this problem.
714
00:58:26,681 --> 00:58:32,161
And the way in which he approached this
was from a very pure mathematical point of view.
715
00:58:34,201 --> 00:58:38,801
This equation shows that chemicals
following incredibly simple mathematical rules
716
00:58:38,841 --> 00:58:44,001
can, in principle, spontaneously create
the markings on living creatures.
717
00:58:54,481 --> 00:58:57,761
It's such an interesting equation
because it looks very simple...
718
00:58:57,801 --> 00:59:01,161
it doesn't sort of scream
stripes or spots at you.
719
00:59:01,201 --> 00:59:03,081
But as soon as you
start thinking about it
720
00:59:03,121 --> 00:59:05,361
certainly when Turing
started thinking about it
721
00:59:05,401 --> 00:59:09,081
he had had this big insight
that patterns are going to form.
722
00:59:19,721 --> 00:59:22,441
The rules are not just put black here,
put white there
723
00:59:22,481 --> 00:59:24,401
put black here, put white there
724
00:59:24,441 --> 00:59:27,921
they are not paint zebra by numbers rules.
725
00:59:27,961 --> 00:59:30,601
There are just a naturally running
mathematical system
726
00:59:30,641 --> 00:59:33,001
which by some beautiful feature
of the mathematics
727
00:59:33,041 --> 00:59:37,161
you crank the handle on the mathematics
and out comes the stripes or the spots.
728
00:59:42,841 --> 00:59:47,521
One of the first areas
in which he applied this
729
00:59:47,561 --> 00:59:53,001
was to explain the black
and white dappling on cows
730
00:59:53,041 --> 00:59:55,961
and he published a famous paper
731
00:59:56,001 --> 01:00:00,481
his morphogenesis paper, explaining that.
732
01:00:08,001 --> 01:00:12,761
You can even draw some sort of parallel
between what Turing did for nature
733
01:00:12,801 --> 01:00:14,321
and what he did in Bletchley Park.
734
01:00:15,441 --> 01:00:17,721
Turing is decoding nature.
735
01:00:22,681 --> 01:00:28,161
He had an almost physical feeling for how
those equations moved and played together.
736
01:00:28,761 --> 01:00:33,241
And probably the closest analogy for me
is of a composer.
737
01:00:33,281 --> 01:00:35,961
Turing is a little bit like Mozart.
738
01:00:36,001 --> 01:00:41,601
He could hear the whole glorious structure
of it somewhere inside his head.
739
01:00:50,441 --> 01:00:56,321
Turing really set the scene for a lot
of science that is now going on
740
01:00:56,361 --> 01:01:00,121
50 or 60 years after he started this work.
741
01:01:01,401 --> 01:01:03,961
I don't expect you to read my paper
742
01:01:04,001 --> 01:01:08,201
as fascinated as you appear to be
in the activities of my imagination.
743
01:01:09,121 --> 01:01:14,521
To me, morphogenesis is a giant
beautiful mathematical dream
744
01:01:14,561 --> 01:01:22,481
but to you - I think it would just appear
a series of scary mathematical functions.
745
01:01:29,521 --> 01:01:32,681
In a funny way, he had returned
to where he started intellectually.
746
01:01:32,721 --> 01:01:39,601
When he was a boy at Sherborne,
he was very interested in botany and biology.
747
01:01:40,521 --> 01:01:43,081
There's of course that famous image of him
748
01:01:43,121 --> 01:01:46,321
during the hockey game -
watching the daisies grow.
749
01:01:46,361 --> 01:01:51,361
Turing effectively came full circle
and returned to that period in his youth.
750
01:01:56,241 --> 01:02:01,121
As their sessions continued,
Greenbaum saw Turing not just as a patient
751
01:02:01,161 --> 01:02:03,361
but also as a friend.
752
01:02:05,161 --> 01:02:11,281
I think the empathy that he developed
with Alan Turing was very much that.
753
01:02:11,321 --> 01:02:16,961
It was a friendship thing that
developed out of the medical relationship.
754
01:02:17,561 --> 01:02:19,961
He was part of the family.
755
01:02:21,041 --> 01:02:23,961
He was very friendly towards me.
756
01:02:24,001 --> 01:02:27,521
And Alan would come
and sit by me and talk to me
757
01:02:27,561 --> 01:02:29,321
and take an interest in what I was doing.
758
01:02:30,841 --> 01:02:33,281
I just liked him as a person.
759
01:02:35,441 --> 01:02:40,321
As a child, I would sit there
on the floor playing the solitaire game.
760
01:02:40,361 --> 01:02:43,281
And he would sit there chatting.
761
01:02:43,321 --> 01:02:49,561
And then out of the blue
this letter arrived in the post.
762
01:02:50,081 --> 01:02:55,121
It says, 'Dear Maria. It is just to tell you
how to do the solitaire puzzle.'
763
01:02:56,001 --> 01:02:58,801
And there he's drawn a little diagram.
764
01:03:00,401 --> 01:03:02,761
And then he goes on to close the letter
765
01:03:02,801 --> 01:03:07,201
'I hope you all have a very nice
holiday in Italian Switzerland.
766
01:03:07,241 --> 01:03:09,721
I shall not be very far away
767
01:03:10,801 --> 01:03:15,321
at Club Mediterranée,
Ipsos, Corfu, Greece.
768
01:03:15,361 --> 01:03:17,481
Yours, Alan Turing.'
769
01:03:27,921 --> 01:03:31,761
During this period, Turing made
a couple of trips to the continent.
770
01:03:31,801 --> 01:03:36,801
British gay men often went abroad because
they were able to live more freely abroad.
771
01:03:37,521 --> 01:03:40,401
There was not this constant
looming threat of arrest.
772
01:03:46,841 --> 01:03:49,721
He sent us a card from Greece.
773
01:03:49,761 --> 01:03:55,041
'I've met the most lovely
young man on the beach', he says.
774
01:03:59,681 --> 01:04:05,321
The continent offered joys, pleasures,
especially after the war.
775
01:04:06,681 --> 01:04:10,001
And Greece had this mythological status.
776
01:04:10,041 --> 01:04:18,761
And by the 1950s, Paris, parts of Scandinavia,
offered these golden opportunities.
777
01:04:22,561 --> 01:04:27,521
During this period, he decided to make
a trip to Bergen, Norway for a holiday.
778
01:04:28,241 --> 01:04:30,441
He caught the ferry here in Newcastle
779
01:04:30,481 --> 01:04:34,721
and it was a ferry ride
right out there across the North Sea.
780
01:04:35,761 --> 01:04:38,121
Norway represented for him
781
01:04:38,161 --> 01:04:45,721
an alternative to the much more rigid,
repressive atmosphere of England at the time.
782
01:04:53,281 --> 01:04:55,641
I've been learning Norwegian.
783
01:04:57,761 --> 01:05:00,081
I rather like Norway.
784
01:05:00,841 --> 01:05:03,081
It may become a routine.
785
01:05:04,681 --> 01:05:07,601
They have dances there for men only.
786
01:05:07,641 --> 01:05:10,241
Men dancing with men. Imagine!
787
01:05:14,241 --> 01:05:18,281
While he was in Bergen,
he met a young Norwegian man named Kjell
788
01:05:18,321 --> 01:05:23,521
with whom, as he described it,
he shared a drunken kiss under a flag post.
789
01:05:24,561 --> 01:05:27,481
This episode, which seemed very innocent
790
01:05:27,521 --> 01:05:31,361
was unfortunately to have very,
very serious repercussions for him.
791
01:05:34,681 --> 01:05:38,881
There was a boy from Norway
who apparently came to visit me
792
01:05:39,601 --> 01:05:46,161
but something happened involving
the police and I never got to see him.
793
01:05:49,041 --> 01:05:51,001
His name was Kjell.
794
01:05:53,521 --> 01:05:56,161
He wrote to me to say
he was coming to visit.
795
01:05:56,201 --> 01:05:59,001
And, as I understand it, he arrived
796
01:06:00,561 --> 01:06:02,561
but before he could make contact
797
01:06:03,161 --> 01:06:07,561
it appears he was chased by the police
all over the north of bloody England
798
01:06:08,401 --> 01:06:10,481
and finally he went home.
799
01:06:13,401 --> 01:06:15,121
He was quiet.
800
01:06:15,161 --> 01:06:16,841
Handsome.
801
01:06:18,081 --> 01:06:20,241
A winning combination!
802
01:06:24,241 --> 01:06:27,001
I know they've been watching my house.
803
01:06:27,641 --> 01:06:30,201
Perhaps that's what spooked him.
804
01:06:33,161 --> 01:06:35,601
I wish they'd leave me alone.
805
01:06:41,041 --> 01:06:45,961
An important question is
why the police were following Turing.
806
01:06:46,001 --> 01:06:50,481
I suspect the reason was because
he was perceived as a major security risk.
807
01:06:51,321 --> 01:06:55,641
We have to remember that 1952 was
the absolute height of Cold War paranoia
808
01:06:55,681 --> 01:07:01,961
during which the idea of the homosexual traitor
was taking hold in the popular imagination.
809
01:07:04,041 --> 01:07:08,841
Homosexuals must not
be handling top secret material.
810
01:07:08,881 --> 01:07:11,761
The pervert is easy prey
to the blackmailer.
811
01:07:14,241 --> 01:07:16,321
Turing fit the part perfectly.
812
01:07:16,961 --> 01:07:21,481
We know that he had a lot
of classified, secret information
813
01:07:21,521 --> 01:07:24,401
that he had gathered during
his time at Bletchley Park.
814
01:07:24,961 --> 01:07:30,441
I think there was probably an assumption
that Turing might very well go rogue.
815
01:07:32,841 --> 01:07:36,281
And so the police really began
to close in on him.
816
01:07:36,321 --> 01:07:39,841
And this, I think,
is something very, very tragic.
817
01:07:39,881 --> 01:07:43,881
I think he began to feel increasingly
that he had no freedom anymore
818
01:07:43,921 --> 01:07:46,441
that he couldn't have
any kind of an ordinary life.
819
01:07:48,041 --> 01:07:51,961
It's worth bearing in mind that at the same time
he was undergoing the organo therapy
820
01:07:52,001 --> 01:07:55,321
which was playing havoc with his hormones.
821
01:08:02,081 --> 01:08:05,641
It wasn't just Turing's body
that had been damaged.
822
01:08:05,681 --> 01:08:08,401
His brain too had been affected.
823
01:08:10,521 --> 01:08:13,841
We know from the medical evidence
that if you castrate a man
824
01:08:13,881 --> 01:08:17,761
then you change his ability
to think and his ability to concentrate.
825
01:08:17,801 --> 01:08:22,641
And if you take testosterone away,
then the brain will become muddled.
826
01:08:28,081 --> 01:08:31,321
[Turing's voice] I've got a
shocking tendency
at present to fritter my time away
827
01:08:31,361 --> 01:08:33,521
in anything but what I ought to be doing.
828
01:08:34,481 --> 01:08:39,281
I thought I'd found the reason for all this,
but that hasn't made things much better.
829
01:08:45,801 --> 01:08:50,281
In April 1953, his oestrogen treatment ends.
830
01:08:50,321 --> 01:08:54,081
Turing was perhaps expecting
things to change quickly
831
01:08:54,121 --> 01:08:58,561
but his body was not responding in the way
that he may have thought it would have done.
832
01:08:59,721 --> 01:09:05,601
The theory is if you stop exposure
of the male body to oestrogen
833
01:09:05,641 --> 01:09:10,961
then slowly over time his testosterone
levels will begin to rise.
834
01:09:11,001 --> 01:09:13,601
That's fine, in theory.
835
01:09:13,641 --> 01:09:20,481
It can take many, many months, six, seven, eight,
nine months, to recover sexual function, if at all.
836
01:09:20,521 --> 01:09:23,761
Some men report that they never
recover their sexual function
837
01:09:23,801 --> 01:09:27,201
after they've taken
oestrogen therapy for that long.
838
01:09:28,841 --> 01:09:33,441
Organo therapy was court-ordered at my trial
if I wanted to avoid prison.
839
01:09:33,481 --> 01:09:36,881
They're hormones, female hormones.
840
01:09:37,721 --> 01:09:41,761
They're meant to decrease my libido.
And they do... have.
841
01:09:42,481 --> 01:09:46,441
But being hormones,
they also cause other physical reactions.
842
01:09:49,001 --> 01:09:51,401
They say the effects are reversible.
843
01:09:54,281 --> 01:09:56,241
Well, it ends there.
844
01:09:57,561 --> 01:09:59,681
The thought ends there.
845
01:10:01,521 --> 01:10:04,881
I don't know why I should have
gone to such lengths to avoid prison.
846
01:10:04,921 --> 01:10:10,801
Being locked up with a bunch of ruffians?
I can imagine myself paying for that.
847
01:10:17,001 --> 01:10:18,121
Should we go inside?
848
01:10:23,521 --> 01:10:29,841
The condition of his life was becoming
increasingly untenable, increasingly grim.
849
01:10:30,641 --> 01:10:34,601
Somewhere along the line,
something broke.
850
01:10:35,561 --> 01:10:40,481
His ability to endure failed
851
01:10:40,521 --> 01:10:45,481
and the suffering that he was undergoing
became, I suspect, overwhelming.
852
01:10:51,921 --> 01:10:58,201
In May 1954, Alan Turing joined Franz Greenbaum
and his family on a day trip to Blackpool
853
01:10:58,241 --> 01:11:00,441
a beach town in Northwest England.
854
01:11:04,521 --> 01:11:11,241
Alan was wearing a stripy blazer
with the sleeves up here
855
01:11:11,281 --> 01:11:14,121
on the white shirt
poking out from underneath.
856
01:11:14,161 --> 01:11:17,201
So he really looked very strange.
857
01:11:18,041 --> 01:11:22,721
There was a fortune teller's tent
on the promenade
858
01:11:24,361 --> 01:11:29,001
and Alan decided that he would like
to go in and see the fortune teller.
859
01:11:29,041 --> 01:11:33,281
And he went in there
and he was gone for a little while
860
01:11:33,321 --> 01:11:37,041
and he came out and we looked at him
861
01:11:37,081 --> 01:11:40,041
and he was ashen-faced
862
01:11:40,801 --> 01:11:45,601
absolutely horrified expression on his face.
863
01:11:57,801 --> 01:11:59,641
Do you know what's here?
864
01:12:01,081 --> 01:12:02,201
What?
865
01:12:02,761 --> 01:12:05,921
Signals. Radio signals. Just here.
866
01:12:07,441 --> 01:12:11,001
The air is full of radio signals
flying past our heads
867
01:12:11,041 --> 01:12:12,321
ready to be intercepted.
868
01:12:14,801 --> 01:12:17,241
We all see different things.
869
01:12:18,081 --> 01:12:21,761
Do you know honeybees
see by ultraviolet light?
870
01:12:23,201 --> 01:12:28,401
Their eyes perceive a range of wavelengths
entirely different to what we can see as humans
871
01:12:28,441 --> 01:12:34,441
and so, even though we're in the same world,
we see another world entirely.
872
01:12:39,641 --> 01:12:42,441
When I went to see that
fortune teller in Blackpool
873
01:12:43,081 --> 01:12:46,801
she told me one or two things
I suppose I didn't want to know.
874
01:12:48,401 --> 01:12:50,121
What did she say?
875
01:12:50,161 --> 01:12:53,801
Our session was private,
just like yours and mine.
876
01:12:54,801 --> 01:12:57,841
But she saw things other people don't.
877
01:12:58,561 --> 01:13:00,321
Rather like you.
878
01:13:02,761 --> 01:13:08,041
He wouldn't divulge what had happened,
what the woman had said to him.
879
01:13:08,081 --> 01:13:11,681
He was desperately, desperately unhappy.
880
01:13:11,721 --> 01:13:14,801
And he didn't say anything more after that.
881
01:13:21,161 --> 01:13:23,801
I don't think I'm allowed to travel anymore.
882
01:13:26,121 --> 01:13:28,601
It doesn't matter what I say now, does it.
883
01:13:29,121 --> 01:13:31,801
They think our sort are weak-willed
and so we're bound to talk
884
01:13:31,841 --> 01:13:35,441
so fuck them, fuck them sideways.
I'll say whatever I please.
885
01:13:39,161 --> 01:13:42,721
Alan, what's happened?
886
01:13:43,401 --> 01:13:44,921
Nothing.
887
01:13:46,641 --> 01:13:48,321
Nothing's happened.
888
01:13:48,721 --> 01:13:51,641
Nothing new anyway, nothing different.
889
01:13:53,921 --> 01:13:58,721
There must have come a moment
when he felt it just wasn't worth it.
890
01:13:58,761 --> 01:14:01,361
That sense of despair.
891
01:14:02,241 --> 01:14:09,921
Whatever the possibilities of his life, for him,
those possibilities didn't seem realistic anymore.
892
01:14:12,281 --> 01:14:15,001
I've seen Snow White and
the Seven Dwarfs seven times.
893
01:14:15,041 --> 01:14:17,001
That's 49 times I've seen a dwarf.
894
01:14:18,521 --> 01:14:21,321
Do you ever wonder what poison
she soaks the apple in?
895
01:14:21,361 --> 01:14:23,041
They don't say in the film.
896
01:14:23,081 --> 01:14:24,881
She'd have had her pick.
897
01:14:24,921 --> 01:14:28,041
Poisons appear everywhere in nature.
898
01:14:28,481 --> 01:14:32,201
Some of the most beautiful flowers
contain the deadliest poisons.
899
01:14:32,241 --> 01:14:34,801
Oleander, Rhododendron, Narcissus.
900
01:14:38,281 --> 01:14:40,721
Do you know what their poison did to me?
901
01:14:42,121 --> 01:14:44,681
It shrunk my testicles.
902
01:14:46,481 --> 01:14:48,361
I grew breasts.
903
01:14:49,761 --> 01:14:54,561
I, we all, worked to break Hitler
because what did he do?
904
01:14:54,601 --> 01:14:56,161
Amongst other things?
905
01:14:57,241 --> 01:15:00,641
He sterilised Jews. Jews like you.
906
01:15:01,601 --> 01:15:04,321
We fought that bastard.
We defeated him.
907
01:15:04,361 --> 01:15:07,401
And when we were finished,
what did they do to me?
908
01:15:09,161 --> 01:15:11,721
And I'm supposed to allow it.
909
01:15:17,121 --> 01:15:19,641
It would be despicable
to do that to anyone
910
01:15:19,681 --> 01:15:23,801
but to do that to someone who ought to
have been treated as a national hero
911
01:15:23,841 --> 01:15:26,001
seems to me especially despicable.
912
01:15:26,761 --> 01:15:33,921
What he suffered was too profound
and too debilitating for him to recover from.
913
01:15:37,281 --> 01:15:41,041
He suddenly saw what a
nasty place the world was.
914
01:15:51,521 --> 01:15:53,001
There are things I can do.
We're all at war
915
01:15:53,041 --> 01:15:58,081
all of us, all of the time,
each in our own little fucking war.
916
01:15:59,481 --> 01:16:01,361
What are you saying?
917
01:16:04,041 --> 01:16:06,401
Don't worry. I'm not saying anything.
918
01:16:07,641 --> 01:16:12,801
Although Snow White,
coupled with my own perverse thinking
919
01:16:13,401 --> 01:16:17,641
did yield an amusing idea
as to how someone might kill himself
920
01:16:17,681 --> 01:16:20,881
using an apple and electrical wiring.
921
01:16:20,921 --> 01:16:23,081
That would be illegal.
922
01:16:23,121 --> 01:16:24,641
Well, if a man were successful
923
01:16:24,681 --> 01:16:27,881
the bastards would have to try
to pull him back from the mouth of hell
924
01:16:27,921 --> 01:16:30,641
and I have to say -
though I'm not telling you this
925
01:16:31,041 --> 01:16:34,081
it would almost be worth it
just to see them try.
926
01:16:37,841 --> 01:16:40,121
We all have decisions to make.
927
01:16:41,681 --> 01:16:44,801
I don't know what it was
that finally tipped him over the edge.
928
01:16:44,841 --> 01:16:51,841
But I think you've got a mixture there
that is just at boiling point
929
01:16:51,881 --> 01:16:55,801
and it won't take a lot more
to make it boil right over.
930
01:16:57,641 --> 01:17:00,001
Mathematicians talk about
the beauty of numbers
931
01:17:00,041 --> 01:17:01,881
but I know - because I was one -
932
01:17:01,921 --> 01:17:04,401
they're talking about the computable
933
01:17:05,481 --> 01:17:08,001
the beauty of what can be resolved.
934
01:17:09,241 --> 01:17:12,801
But what about the rest,
the greater infinity?
935
01:17:13,161 --> 01:17:20,281
What's not computable lies beyond
the infinitesimal sliver of knowledge
936
01:17:20,321 --> 01:17:26,241
we've managed to subdue inside
our fragile, trembling human consciousness
937
01:17:27,441 --> 01:17:34,161
a consciousness which is, in fact, decaying
within us from the moment we're born.
938
01:17:40,161 --> 01:17:42,761
I won't be able to come
for dinner on Sunday.
939
01:17:43,441 --> 01:17:45,961
I'm afraid I've made other plans.
940
01:17:46,001 --> 01:17:48,841
Alan, come back! Sit down!
941
01:18:04,201 --> 01:18:09,441
Alan Turing's body was found by his
housekeeper on June the 8th, 1954.
942
01:18:09,881 --> 01:18:12,161
He was 41 years old.
943
01:18:12,561 --> 01:18:16,681
The death was recorded as suicide,
caused by cyanide poisoning.
944
01:18:17,641 --> 01:18:20,721
A half-eaten apple lay by his bedside.
945
01:18:21,561 --> 01:18:23,481
He left no note.
946
01:18:25,481 --> 01:18:30,401
My mum came in and she said,
'I've got something to tell you'.
947
01:18:30,441 --> 01:18:32,841
And she said, 'Alan has died'.
948
01:18:32,881 --> 01:18:35,361
And I was just so upset.
949
01:18:39,081 --> 01:18:44,081
When we heard that he'd died,
our father was very upset.
950
01:18:44,121 --> 01:18:50,401
It was very disturbing.
Terrible waste of a brilliant brain.
951
01:18:52,521 --> 01:18:57,321
We lost one of our great computer scientists,
one of our great mathematicians
952
01:18:57,361 --> 01:19:00,441
one of our first mathematical biologists
953
01:19:00,921 --> 01:19:07,961
and I think British science
would have advanced faster
954
01:19:08,001 --> 01:19:10,081
and would have been different
in many ways
955
01:19:10,121 --> 01:19:14,401
more creative, in some ways,
if Turing had lived.
956
01:19:17,321 --> 01:19:21,001
I think all we can say is that
it is a terrible tragedy
957
01:19:21,041 --> 01:19:26,241
that such a great and brilliant man
should have had to suffer so much.
958
01:19:26,281 --> 01:19:31,201
And that his life should have
ended in such a tragic way.
87024