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Contents 1 Asperger syndrome 2 Question about the statue... 3 Turing was a homosexual 4 The footnotes 5 Posthumous recognition 6 Turing in Fiction 7 Should we request semi-protection for the article? 8 religious stance 9 Photo of Turing 10 Weasel wording in the intro 11 Awards 12 Turing-Welshman ndash 13 Picture of statue 14 rkbexplorer.com links added in good faith 15 Texai 16 reliance on hodges, copeland 17 On Computable Numbers pdf 18 Turing's outing 19 Public domain photo of Turing 20 Lead 21 Distinguished degree 22 half-eaten apple 23 assassination theory 24 Editing Abuse 25 Location of details about the apology 26 Timothy Ferris book quote

[edit] Asperger syndrome

The following references identify Alan Turing as having had Asperger syndrome, or identify him as a possible case. At least two of the authors of these items are professors, and at least two of them are Asperger syndrome experts.

O’Connell H., Fitzgerald M. (2003). Did Alan Turing have Asperger’s syndrome? Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine. 20, 1, 28 – 31. http://www.ijpm.org/index.html?level=2&isid=30&var=past

James, Ioan (2005) Asperger syndrome and high achievement: some very remarkable people. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Attwood, Tony (2000) The autism epidemic – real or imagined. Autism Asperger’s Digest. November/December 2000. http://www.tonyattwood.com.au/pdfs/attwood4.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.110.18 (talk) 13:59, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I would definitely suggest that someone add this material to the article. Somewhere else there is a comment that the article relies too much on Hodges' wonderful biography. This is another perspective. Jfgrcar (talk) 20:28, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Question about the statue...

I was looking at the picture, and trying to figure out if he's holding an apple in the hand resting on the bench. Can anyone confirm that this is the case? It would seem somewhat appropriate, with the sense of humor he had. Or at least, that I've read about. D1universe (talk) 08:11, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been there, he is indeed holding an apple. Very appropriate, I thought. 82.31.236.174 (talk) 22:30, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Bearing in mind, of course, that the apple also symbolises stolen knowledge, and that Turing was an avowed atheist. - Tenebris —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.254.157.35 (talk) 20:37, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Turing was a homosexual

Would anyone object to changing the first reference to homosexual to gay? Homosexual is a cold clinical term kind of dehumanizes him and the struggles that we gay people have gone through. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.223.15.238 (talk) 23:08, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:NPOV Netrat_msk (talk) 17:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Church of emacs has changed 'gay' back to 'homosexual'. I would support the change, as this was the term in use at the time and 'gay' had a different meaning. The argument that 'homosexual' dehumanises Turing seems to me to have no validity—historical judgements should be made with an understanding of the context of the time. TedColes (talk) 16:32, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Is should stays as is. I am hetrosexual, not straight. Also, the word 'gay' has other meanings - homosexual does not. Jacobsdad (talk) 08:11, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I have a different issue with that sentence: "Turing's homosexuality, illegal and considered to be a mental illness during his lifetime ...". It is true that "experts" considered it a mental illness, but he wasn't prosecuted for being sick. He was prosecuted for doing things that were considered criminal actions. Isn't that more relevant? Zero^talk 08:44, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

One wouldn't be prosecuted for homosexuality today, and neither would one (generally) be regarded as "mentally ill". I think it's a useful reminder of the different attitudes that prevailed in 1950's Britain. --Malleus Fatuorum 08:57, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, he was prosecuted for "gross indecency", not for BEING a homosexual. It would be nice to tidy up that text. And I agree with TedColes that "homosexual" was the language of the time. "Gay" meant something else entirely then, and now has too many meanings, including being a general pejorative term for anything teenagers don't like. HiLo48 (talk) 02:31, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

The text seems to me to be perfectly accurate already. --Malleus Fatuorum 02:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

The text is wrong - "Turing's homosexuality, which was illegal and considered to be a mental illness during his lifetime, resulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952." It was not illegal to be homosexual, it was illegal to have homosexual sex. 88.104.206.175 (talk) 10:44, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

OK. I've changed it to "Turing's homosexuality resulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952—homosexual acts were illegal in the United Kingdom at that time—and he accepted treatment with female hormones as an alternative to prison." Better? --Malleus Fatuorum 15:28, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] The footnotes

are butchered in the entry, probably a function of sloppy editing. Could someone please salvage the footnotes?SLY111 (talk) 20:19, 21 March 2008 (UTC)SLY111

[edit] Posthumous recognition

Turing Lecture 2008 at Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park is holding the annual Turing Lecture 2008 on Thursday, 10th July. Dr Andrew Hodges, tutor in Mathematics and Fellow of Wadham College, University of Oxford, will discuss some of the unresolved issues that have come to the forefront, as historians of science strive to understand the development of Turing’s thought.

[edit] Turing in Fiction

The entire "Turing in Fiction" section is not only full of trivia, but technically doesn't even belong in this article:

• In the 1986 play by Hugh Whitemore and the later 1996 television drama Breaking the Code Turing is portrayed by Derek Jacobi.

• Says nothing about Turing. Possible mention in associated pages, but adds nothing to this article.

• Physicist Janna Levin's novel A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines focuses on the lives of both Alan Turing and Kurt Gödel.

• Fictional novel. Perhaps a mention in the bibliography?

• In the 1989 Doctor Who serial The Curse of Fenric, the character of Dr Judson is based on Turing. Turing himself is a narrator of the Doctor Who spin-off novel The Turing Test by Paul Leonard. An Alan Turing from a parallel universe appears in the later novel The Domino Effect by David Bishop.

• Says nothing about Turing. Possible mention in associated pages, but adds nothing to this article.

• Greg Egan's novella, Oracle, is about an alternate universe version of Turing.

• Says nothing about Turing. Possible mention in associated pages, but adds nothing to this article.

• In 1987 German author and playwright Rolf Hochhuth published the novel Alan Turing after reading the biography written by Turing's mother.

• Fictional novel? Already mentioned in the Further Reading section.

• Neal Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon features Turing as a supporting character.

• Says nothing about Turing. Possible mention in associated pages, but adds nothing to this article. Truly trivial.

• In William Gibson's novel Neuromancer, the military subdivision who control the AIs of Wintermute and Neuromancer are known as the Turing Police.

• Says nothing about Turing. Possible mention in associated pages, but adds nothing to this article. Truly trivial.

• In Robert Harris's thriller Enigma, Turing and his work are part of the background involving WWII espionage at Bletchley Park.

• Says nothing about Turing. Possible mention in associated pages, but adds nothing to this article.

• In a 2006 film The Good Shepherd, Dr. Fredericks' character is inspired by Alan Turing.

• Says nothing about Turing. Possible mention in associated pages, but adds nothing to this article. Truly trivial.

• In the Young James Bond series book Double or Die Alan Turing is character who is working on improving Charles Babbage's work and at the end of the book is helping the British with a code cracking machine.

• Says nothing about Turing. Possible mention in associated pages, but adds nothing to this article.

Unless there are objections, I'm going to remove the whole section. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 21:21, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Appropriate, as far as I can judge. Glad the info is still here, though.Derekbd (talk) 12:47, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Should we request semi-protection for the article?

This page is practically a "poster child" for semi-protection -- there's a remarkably steady stream of vandalism from randomly distributed sources. Do others agree? The criteria is 5% of edits being vandalism and on this page it must be well over 50%.

Over half the traffic on my watchlist is vandalism to this article. It all gets fixed quickly, but just the sheer noise level on our watchlists is an impediment to real work, I think.

The request page is WP:RFP in case someone wants to just go ahead and make the request. The policies seem to suggest the initial request be for a limited period of time, to see if the problem goes away. I think the idea is that makes the culprits get bored and move on. But it doesn't look like a small number of people or even groups are responsible, so I suspect we'll wind up having this page permanently semi-protected.

Alternatively, we could use the vandalism as a random number generator. Its incidence seems to be a very nice white noise approximation. Turing would have liked that, I think.

--Jeffreykegler (talk) 03:56, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I would support this. TedColes (talk) 07:55, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

It may be my imagination, but vandalism seems to have slowed. The Wiki-powers-that-be apparently frown on pre-emptive requests for protection, so unless a consensus appears that is eager to make the request, I'm going to wait and see. --Jeffreykegler (talk) 04:12, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, sorry if I'm doing this wrong but it is vandalized right now. Some one replaced eating a cyanide laced apple in the Prosecution and Death section with some ridiculous stuff about a giant laser. I'd fix it myself, but I just signed up today to try to report this vandalization (I just got back from a museum about his work). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikibufo (talk • contribs) 23:15, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] religious stance

The religious stance in the infobox was recently removed with the comment "Atheism is not a religious stance." This has been discussed at WikiProject_Atheism. The consensus was that atheism is technically not a religious stance but it is still useful to have that information available. I agree and think the infobox should stay as it was. Carlsotr (talk) 18:23, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Photo of Turing

Does anyone know why there is no longer a photo of Turing on the main page Infobox? Was it a copyright issue? It seems a shame to have a picture of a memorial when we have real photographs of the man himself. Todd (talk) 01:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I was just going to say that. I'd support the proposal of changing the photo of the statue for one of Alan Turing. 190.224.84.146 (talk) 07:02, 9 December 2008 (UTC) I too would support this. It is quite strange to have an article about a person of whom many photos have been published without one of him at the top of the page. TedColes (talk) 19:37, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

See the section Public domain photo of Turing--TedColes (talk) 07:46, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel wording in the intro

The statement "[h]e died not long after, under what some believe were ambiguous circumstances" needs to be sourced. Reading the talk page archive, there was some discussion on the circumstances around his death, but no apparent conclusion. There must be some credible sources that at the very least question the nature of his death. I'm not familiar with the literature on Turing, so I don't want to go blindly adding sources myself. freshacconci talktalk 13:08, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Awards

When did Turing receive his OBE and FRS? They are only mentioned in the introduction and infobox, as far as I can tell. novakreo (talk) 12:15, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

OBE June 1946 'for his war service' according to Andrew Hodges (1985) p. 338. FRS 15 March 1951 Hodges p. 438. --TedColes (talk) 13:06, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Turing-Welshman ndash

I can see this just becoming an edit war, although I think those working on this article would still have a good natured one.

I till don't see the need for an ndash here. It's hardly the end of the world, but huge numbers of collaborations have always just been printed with normal hyphen. I don't think there's any likeihodd, ESCPECIALLY considering the title of the article, that people would think Turing-Welchman was one person. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SimonTrew (talk • contribs) 08:03, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah it is not the end of the world. And good to know that everyone here will have a friendly war! SimonTrew (talk) 21:04, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

WP:MOSDASH: use an ndash. Mr Stephen (talk) 21:12, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Fair dinkum. Usually I have the opposite problem correcting into emdash or ndash, not out of them. Here I still kinda grumbly disagree but if those are the style guidelines, I can live with that. SimonTrew (talk) 22:10, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Picture of statue

The pic of Turing's statue in Manchester appears twice in the article. Is this necessary? SimonTrew (talk) 21:02, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Why not an actual picture of the man someplace in the article? It seems odd that there isn't one. --Mrnorwood (talk) 15:15, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I too recommend a photo that is free to use. I'll stop short of doing it myself. This is not my baby. Redding7 (talk) 14:19, 7 April 2009 (UTC)Chris Redding

[edit] rkbexplorer.com links added in good faith

A few refs have been added lately by User:Hugh.glaser, I am sure in good faith, but am a little uncomfortable about them because they link to a dot com. But actually it looks more like a portal for academic institutions. Any opitions? I haven't contacted the user directly yet.

SimonTrew (talk) 22:43, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Texai

Texai, an "open source project to create artificial intelligence" is planned for initial deployment on June 23, 2009 (Turing's birthday). www.texai.org Nino DeCoy (talk) 06:24, 21 May 2009 (UTC)Nino DeCoyNino DeCoy (talk) 06:24, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] reliance on hodges, copeland

All crucial points on Turing's personal life appear to rely on Hodges biography. Hodges being a homosexual rights activist is likely to display some bias in order to make Turing into a poster child. His intentions may be proper but the tendency is probable. Some corroborating biographical sources would be good. Statements like "Turing acknowledged a sexual relationship with Murray" might hide that Murray was a rent boy, or that Turing had been grooming him or that Murray was using sex acts as a lure in order to steal from Turing. Or "Turing was given a choice between imprisonment or probation conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal treatment" might hide Turing having decided for himself to seek treatment or having viewed himself as being wrong to pursue a homosexual tryst. Such minor points change an onlookers whole conception of Turings mindset in respect of any homosexual activity. In my mind the subtleties should be confirmed if possible. Note turing.org.uk is effectively the same source.

Did Turing have any other homosexual liaisons? Was he bisexual?

Copeland seems to be a bit of a fanboy too. For example when talking on alanturing.net of Turing as being the originator of the idea of the stored program no mention appears to be made of those who developed the idea in parallel with Turing - Turing was an awesome mathematician, no doubt. No mention anywhere on alanturing.net of the suggestion of Turing having Asperger's syndrome either? To not even mention it seems strange. Pbhj (talk) 15:47, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure I understand what you're concerned about here. Turing was certainly homosexual, had many homosexual liaisons throughout his life, made no particular secret of his homosexuality, and admitted his relationship with Murray to the police. Pethaps a little bit could be added about Turing's brief relationship with Murray (Turing picked him up outside a cinema), as it was evidently an important factor in his life. Is that what you're getting at? --Malleus Fatuorum 16:21, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Things like http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Clarke_Joan.html which quotes Hodges as quoting Turing, speaking to his fiancé saying "... to not count on it working out as he had homosexual tendencies." lead away from the idea that he took part in a series of homosexual relationships. Perhaps it's just how the sources are quoted but I think they're showing some bias - The academic not mentioning mental illness or equal parallel achievement, the social biographer not mentioning (thought I now know he did, just that it's not quoted) potential heterosexual relationships. Your source on the cinema visit and it's addition, which moves to indicate more of Turing's lifestyle, would be good. I suppose it's that it has taken me only about 30mins to find 2 highly notable details on the counter-side of the general thrust of who Mr Turing was is my concern. Thanks for your input. Pbhj (talk) 16:40, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't know - this whole aspect of Alan Turing's life seems thinly sourced to me. We always seem to come back to Hodges and where did he get it from? The story about the Hormone injections (Hodges) and the breast development (Gay web site) etc seems highly implausible, even anachronistic to me. What are the primary sources for all of this - without them I do not believe this stuff at all. Andrei nzv8 (talk) 22:07, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

What is it exactly that you don't believe? That Turing was convicted of "gross indecency"? That he agreed to chemical castration as an alternative to prison? That he suffered from a common side effect of that treatment? --Malleus Fatuorum 08:30, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe most of it - where are the primary sources? For example I have done a literature search trying to find any suggestion of treating homosexuals with 'hormones' to reduce their libido or for any other purpose for that matter prior to or during the era this purportedly happened. There is nothing. Yet we are supposed to believe an English Judge or Magistrate sentenced someone to this seemingly non existent treatment in 1952. On what basis would such an order be made?

It doesn't stack up - show me the court records and I'll believe it but a book written by an activist over thirty years after the event a primary source does not make - in fact should be treated with suspicion Andrei nzv8 (talk) 19:30, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I think that you're a little confused. No English judge, and certainly not a magistrate, has ever had the power to "order" chemical castration. Turing agreed to it in preference to a prison sentence. "Court records" aren't generally available in the UK. Would you be satisfied with a report published in a reputable newspaper? Or would you simply then move on to some other nonsensical claim? --Malleus Fatuorum 20:05, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know anything about Turing's case, but the idea of sex hormone "treatment" for homosexuality certainly existed at the time. For example it is mentioned (with scepticism) in C.E. Smith, The homosexual federal offender: a study of 100 cases, Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science, vol 590 (1953) 582-589. This paper summarises the UK practice in the 1950s. Oestrogen treatment is mentioned. Zero^talk 05:38, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Looking at Hodges p469-470 there are references to the "treatment" in general. Notably the one in note 14, The full ref is F. L. Golla, R. Sessions Hodge, HORMONE TREATMENT OF THE SEXUAL OFFENDER, The Lancet, Volume 253, Issue 6563, 11 June 1949, Pages 1006-1007. The article concludes

 In view of the non-mutilating nature of this treatment and the ease with which it can be administered to a consenting patient we believe that it should be adopted whenever possible in male cases of abnormal and uncontrollable sexual urge. 

Billlion (talk) 08:18, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] On Computable Numbers pdf

I linked to a different "On Computable Numbers..." pdf in the Papers section. The previous one changed the original paper's typesetting in some sections. I tried to make sense of the paper from that link and couldn't. I read a version with the original typesetting and found it significantly easier. Compare Section 4 "Abbreviated Tables" from the different pdfs if you want to change it back. The new link is the one used in Wikipedia's "List of Important Publications in Computer Science". 99.190.81.26 (talk) 02:14, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

By the way, the original version from the publisher seems to be freely available at the moment, just follow doi:10.1112/plms/s2-42.1.230. — Miym (talk) 08:02, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the link to the original. I'm finding that the new pdf link isn't perfect either. The original has its flaws too, like hard to differentiate typesetting (which is what I guess the previous pdf was trying to fix, but did badly). It's unfortunate that each of these are flawed. One almost has to look at both the original and the updated link when making sense of the paper. Anyone have an excellent pdf version? 99.190.81.26 (talk)

[edit] Turing's outing

Reading the sentence "Subsequent to his being outed...", I couldn't help but feel it should either "Subsequent to his being 'outed'..." or another less colloquial term such as "exposed as a homosexual" - though admittedly the latter suggestion is clumsy. Xyster (talk) 10:56, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Public domain photo of Turing

The photo of Turing here on The Guardian's article about the recent apology, says it is in the public domain. Can we use this photo in the article then? http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/11/pm-apology-to-alan-turing Daemonax (talk) 13:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely!. That would be a great addition to the article. --Malleus Fatuorum 13:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually I'm not convinced this is usable unless we find out more information about this photo (e.g. by asking the Guardian or looking for the source). We can perhaps assume in good faith that the Guardian are correct when they say the image is in the public domain. However as the Guardian is a UK newspaper and website, it's resonable to presume they only care if the image is in the public domain in the UK. It's possible, even if perhaps unlikely the image is not in the public domain in the US (see for example Rule of the shorter term#Situation in the United States) even though it is public domain in the UK (which is I presume the country of origin). As the wikipedia servers are located in the US, we require that all public domain work is public domain in the US. However all this is best discussed at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. Incidentally, if we are able to determine this photo is public domain in the US and are able to determine it is also public domain in the country of origin (which as said, I'm guessing is the UK but we obviously need more then a guess) then we could even upload this to the wikimedia commons for use by all wikimedia projects. Nil Einne (talk) 22:13, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The Guardian is one of the most respectable of UK newspapers, not some Micky Mouse local tabloid. Why challenge their assertion of pd while tacitly accepting the facts presented in the article? If you doubt one, then why not the other? --Malleus Fatuorum 22:28, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Did you read what I said? I feel my explaination is clear enough. I'm not challenging the Guardian's assertation but instead pointed out the Guardian's assertation is unclear and could easily be that the image is PD in the UK, which tells us nothing about its status in the US which is essential on wikipedia. To use an example based on your second point, if the Guardian says "T had sex with at least one person" this does not mean we should say "T had sex with several female human, male human and animal partners" (in case it's not obvious, this is completely made up) in the article. If the Guardian had said "this photo originated from the UK and is public domain in the UK and in the US" then fine. Or for wikipedia purposes, if they had said "this photo is in the public domain in the US" since we only care about US status unlike the commons. But they didn't... Again, if you don't understand any of this, I suggest you read our copyright policies and seek help at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. Nil Einne (talk) 22:09, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I am quite familiar with UK copyright law, which is in many ways far more restrictive than the Florida law that applies to wikipedia. And if you don't understand that, then your comprehension skills rank way down there with your manners. --Malleus Fatuorum 19:10, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

In January this year I contacted Dr Patricia McGuire, Archivist, King's College, Cambridge where they have a number of the photographs of Alan Turing that one sees in books. Her reply was as follows. "Thank you for your interest in the Turing photos. Even for Wikipedia we'd have to charge our 'use of materials' fees, which are a one-time fee of £70, on top of our reproduction fees (£16 for one photo, £1 for additional photos).

"If you're still interested, let me know and we can discuss which photos you might like to use, and get clearance from the copyright holders. King's doesn't have copyright in any of the photos of Turing - our 'use' fee is based upon physical ownership of the originals. I hope that's not too confusing, but please let me know if you have any questions."

I declined her offer but plan to visit Bletchley Park to photograph the statue there, and hope that I can produce one that gives a better view of his face than the long shot of the memorial statue in Sackville Park.--TedColes (talk) 08:05, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Lead

Any chance regular editors of this article could consolidate the lead section into four paragraphs? -- four being the maximum permitted in MOS:LEAD. --Jza84 |  Talk  22:37, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. --Malleus Fatuorum 23:50, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Distinguished degree

What does "graduating with a distinguished degree" mean? Presumably he took the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos. Was he first or second wrangler? Did he just get a first? In what way was it distinguished?Billlion (talk) 08:38, 13 September 2009 (UTC). he also got the Smith Prize, but thats not the same thing.Billlion (talk) 08:40, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

He wouldn't have (officially) been first or second wrangler, as the university stopped publishing the class lists in merit order in about 1910. Appointment to a college fellowship and award of the Smith prize suggests he did pretty well, though. -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 09:28, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

When I saw this heading the first thing I thought of was a Turing degree that's "distinguished" in a mathematical sense (for example, having a constant symbol with that degree as its interpretation). --Trovatore (talk) 09:33, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

So what should it say. "was awarded a first class degree in mathematics", or is there this complicated Cambridge thing of getting a first in part one and two?Billlion (talk) 21:16, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Turing was a B-Wrangler which means first class honours with a distinction in the advanced part which was called schedule B Jfgrcar (talk) 20:35, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] half-eaten apple

Most reports I've read say that there was a half-eaten apple by his bedside. Some say the apple was cyanide laced, others strychnine. Several mention that that apple was not tested in any way and that the cyanide poisoning was declared by the coroner on inspection of Turing's person without account for any visible external sources. Strictly then it seems there was an apple but we can't be sure of anything beyond that. Some even say that the apple was smeared with cyanide-laced jam - which seems quite strange. I'm going to try and edit to clean the point up to leave the known facts and emphasise the speculation - feel free to chip in. Pbhj (talk) 00:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] assassination theory

"Assassination theorists point out that Turing's British passport was not revoked after his conviction, although he was denied entry to the United States. He was still free to teach mathematics and to travel to other European countries, which he did many times." --- Can anyone explain how that could possibly support an assassination theory? And it needs a citation. Zero^talk 07:49, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that anyone has ever seriously proposed that Turing was assassinated, and certainly the fact that his passport wasn't revoked is no evidence in support of that notion, whether it's cited or not. I've removed that paragraph. --Malleus Fatuorum 19:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Editing Abuse

I've never editted a Wiki page, sodon't know how to remove it, but some little Genius has decided to right the word "diiiiiick" at the end of the main section of this article, can someone please remove this on my behalf.

Many thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.74.97.195 (talk) 14:57, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Location of details about the apology

The wording about the UK government's apology, currently included under the "Legacy" heading, would seem to fit better under the heading specifically addressing Turing's indecency conviction, "Conviction for gross indecency". Does anyone have any objection to it being moved? HiLo48 (talk) 22:44, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Timothy Ferris book quote

Is there any stronger evidence for Snow White having been Turing's "favorite fairy tale"?

Did the cited author -- Timothy Ferris -- know Turing or have a source who did?

The language of his book's one Turing reference doesn't seem to imply as much.

Mention in book

--Bcjordan (talk) 19:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

David Leavitt's book also mentions it several times, describing the big impact the movie had on Turing. Diego (talk) 20:22, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Anyone have a copy of David Leavitt's book (I haven't been able to find a searchable preview) to pull a relevant passage or page number from so someone can attach a robust citation or qualify/remove this claim? Leavitt (born 1961) was not a contemporary of Turing's -- Leavitt's writing may explicate the claim's origins, I just can't find it elsewhere online (save for statements citing Wikipedia as source). --Bcjordan (talk) 02:12, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I have a copy of the book, and the claim appears to be perfectly true. I'll add a citation. --Malleus Fatuorum 02:20, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Malleus! *YOU* are why Wikipedia is academically compatible :) --Bcjordan (talk) 02:14, 13 November 2009 (UTC)