Tag: the Queen

Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Alan Turing

The Royal Mint in UK is presenting a new coin series – Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Alan Turing.

Alan Mathison Turing was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, and cryptanalyst born in London. During the Second World War, Turning worked for the Government Code and Cypher School. His codebreaking logic saved estimated millions of live by shortening the war. 

After the war, Turning worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he designed the Automatic Computing Engine, one of the first designs for a stored-programme computer. In 1948, he joined Max Newman’s Computing Machine Laboratory where he helped develop the Manchester computers. Despite of his various accomplishments, Turing was never fully recognized in UK during his lifetime. It is because much of his work was covered by the Official Secrets Act.

And in 1952, Turning was prosecuted for homosexual acts. He then accepted hormone treatment and died 16 days before his 42^ndbirthday from cyanide poisoning. 

In 2009, the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the UK government for “the appalling way Turing was treated”. Queen Elizabeth II granted a posthumous pardon in 2013 which has since led to further pardons to gay men and created what has become known as “Turing’s Law”. In recent years, Turing has become a figurehead for gay rights.

In 2022, The Royal Mint celebrates the man with a remarkable mind with a UK 50p coin available as a gold Proof, silver Proof, silver Proof Piedfort and Brilliant Uncirculated edition. 

Images source:

https://www.royalmint.com/globalassets/consumer/_campaigns/2022/alan-turing/category-page/t3-dt-primary-cat-alan-turing.png?width=2147483647

More information:

https://www.royalmint.com/our-coins/events/alan-turing/