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Turing Archive Director Questions Alan Turing Suicide Report
That Alan Turing committed suicide is widely accepted as fact. Now, an anonymous reader writes, "According to Professor Jack Copeland, director of the The Turing Archive for the History of Computing, 'The coroner [in Turing's case] didn't really investigate the evidence at all, he just jumped to the conclusion that he committed suicide. He seems to have been very biased from the statements in newspapers at the time.' Copeland further said that medical evidence suggested Turing died from inhaling cyanide rather than drinking or ingesting it."
Slashdot's finally gotten to the point where its stories are driven by the Google Doodle!
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It's only been a mere 58 years. Now is the time to look into this.
His suicide was widely reported as fact. I have serious doubts that anyone who looked into the life of Turing actually believed that his suicide was a fact. (Opinions seemed to vary from conspiracy theories focussed on a government assassination, to it was probably suicide but the investigation was so botched up that we'll never know.)
As a chemist who has worked with cyanide, I question whether he would have chosen this method to end his own life. Cyanide poisoning is extremely unpleasant and chemists who work with it generally are aware of this. Cyanide gas is very easy to produce from cyanide solutions, just a matter of adjusting or failing to adjust the pH. I have given myself low level cyanide poisoning without being aware of it until the symptoms appeared hours later, and many others have been saved by having the antidote at hand when they realized they had been exposed.
The gas could easily have been produced in his laboratory by his own accident or neglect, or by someone else.
In my opinion Turing's death by cyanide poisoning was not an intentional suicide.
Verbum caro factum est
We can't rule out murder by soviet agents.
The KGB was still playing fast and dirty back in those days, and cyanide gas was their preferred weapon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera
On the other hand Alan Turing was a great man and an asset to be treasured by the entire world.
By his death the whole of the human race was diminished.
So why would the soviets do such a thing?
another damn apple doubting story?
because he was gay!!!
GM grass?
The widely acknowledge factoid is more than suicide. The claims are he poisoned himself with an apple injected with cyanide, after becoming obsessed with Disney's Snow-White movie. Where does this folklore come from ?
He synthesized cyanide himself, so of course his apartment smelled of it. The idea that a gay man with drug-induced depression could wish to eat the enchanted apple to sleep a hundred years before a prince wakes him up in a more tolerant world seems pretty credible to me.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Back in the 1950s, anyone who was gay was considered as being vulnerable to blackmail by the "filthy reds", who could threaten to expose them unless the subject agreed to work undercover for the commies.
They even applied this standard to the relatively few people who were OPENLY gay, even though there was no basis for exposing somebody who was already out of the closet.
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You might as well do a criminal investigation on Julius Caesar.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Who knew Alan Turing was a vampire hunter?
Please note that most seem to be construing this news as a cue to believe that Turing may have been murdered (by the British government, naturally), when in reality, Prof Jack Copeland, the foremost Turing scholar, and Turing's own mother thought it to be a careless accident rather than a suicide, with Copeland saying "the evidence should be taken at face value - that an accidental death is certainly consistent with all the currently known circumstances." The truth is that the initial inquest was so sloppy we will never know for certain, so those who are apt to believe in government conspiracies will no doubt believe he was assassinated (after he was already subject to humiliating chemical castration), even as the premier Turing expert believes it was more likely an accident.
The beeb has an article that addresses the apple thing--he often ate an apple before bedtime, so the fact that a half-eaten apple was found on his night stand wasn't unusual at all, and the apple was never tested for cyanide.
Two homosexual friends working at NSA went to Moscow in the 60s (I think) and there was a lot of concern about homosexuality and government secrecy.
Homosexuals were then forced to tell their families and friends about their sexual preference to reduce the blackmail potential. Read Bamford's Puzzle Palace.
Why should his sexual or criminal proclivities, real or imagined, have bearing on people caring how he died?
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Be aware: There are likely to be some heavy politics attached to this one. There's a little LGBT politi-blurb making the rounds in Facebook now that claims Turing committed suicide because he was discovered to be gay. Leaving the politics aside, he died a couple of years after the (grossly wrong) conviction/oestrogen injections, but it hasn't stopped certain political groups from using his history to further their own agenda.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Come now, we know Julius Caesar was murdered by Brutus, Cassius Casca et Al. We even have Shakespeare's eyewitness testimony.
Back in the days when they had IDE hard drives.
That man Bandera was a top enemy of the soviet state, very much like those who are called "terrorists" by America today are enemies of the American state. There was a guerilla war going on in the forests of Ukraine and their goal was "decapitation" of the guerilla org. I would not be surprised to learn German and American intel supported them one way or the other. "Fremde Heere Ost" is still located in Munich (where Bandera was killed); except that their name is a bit different now.
Alan Turing was a scientist in Britain with no connections to the SU and British security services are normally quite effective in protecting their own people. But yeah, donning my tinfoil hat I can see Turing breaking soviet codes after he was to successful with German ciphers. The British were shit-scared about the latest incarnation of their arch-enemy Russia. Maybe Turing was too successful and the Russkies got word of it. Tinfoil - a source of creativity !
murder is so much more interesting!
Great Intellect...
No one that understands cyanide would choose that as a suicide method.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
DDG, yesterday
Your confounding him with Arthur C. Clarke
And we all know that inhaling cyanide (as opposed to eating or drinking it) actually has therapeutic effects for depressed men who have been arrested, tried, and convicted of the crime of loving someone of their own gender and then subjected to chemical castration. It couldn't have been suicide.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Allen was a known associate of Torchwood from 1951 through 1956. He was reported dead on 8Jun54, but you can't believe everything you read. He began travelling with The Doctor 7May52. Allan lives! end transmission.
Raise your hand if you have an uncle who left you a nice sum of money because he wasn't married and/or doted on you with financial gifts beyond the usual proportions. How does this not enhance the survival of common genes? At the very least, the presence of non-procreating members in a tribe isn't harmful and might have conveyed some advantages over tribes with higher procreation percentages. There's also a grandmother theory that runs along similar lines. Post-menopausal women don't get the "Darwin award", but contribute to the tribe in various ways. I'm referring to tribes because until about 10,000 years ago that was the most common arrangement. That's a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms.
humour can be a way to deal with sadness too. i think it is tragic that he may have been in a state of either
depression or melancholia, simply as a defence. he had helped so many others with unreserved authentic effort.
to the parent, perhaps these behaviours you describe above sound careless, but what do we know about his
mental state? any clues would be evidence as to which of; murder, suicide, or accident it was.
..is it worthy?
No, he isn't. Turing was a well known lover of young boys.
Um, [...]
"Um," indeed. Presumably, you're struggling to construct a sound argument.
[...] because he was a pederast, [...]
Failing to produce a sound argument or a single citation, you instead resort to circular reasoning.
[...] how fucking stupid are you?
Apparently not as fucking stupid as you'd like me to be, since I'm unpersuaded by your tautology and ad hominem attack.
Your failure to present even one reputable source citation further undermines not just your claim, but your credibility.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan