For no particular reason, I was sitting around thinking about who my heroes are. Without further ado:

Alan Turing has been one of my heroes for a long time. He was pretty much everything an intellectual should be. He was one of a handful of people to all but invent artificial intelligence, cryptanalysis, and computer science. And not just because he was incredibly smart, but because he was creative. While everyone (including him) was still doing the math, he was already thinking about the turing test. But he wasn't just a brilliant academic; he also applied what he knew to the war effort, helping to crack the Nazi enigma code and keep intelligence flowing to allied commanders. and yet he was persecuted for his homosexuality and (probably) killed himself after being convicted of indecency and forced to undergo a "cure". I can only imagine what else he might have done had he lived.


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