The Mind Creative
Cryptanalysis and Early Computers
During World War II, Turing was a leading participant in wartime
code-breaking of German ciphers. He worked at Bletchley Park,
the GCCS wartime station, where he made five major advances
in the field of cryptanalysis. He also wrote two papers about
mathematical approaches to code-breaking, which became such
important classified assets to the Government Communications
Headquarters, that they waited until April 2012 to release them
to the National Archives of the United Kingdom!
Turing moved to London in the mid-1940s, and at the National
Physical Laboratory, he designed the Automatic Computing Engine
and finally created the ground breaking blueprint for storedprogram computers (the very essence of today’s computers). This
work is credited, by many experts in the technology industry, as
the world’s first personal computer.
The ENIGMA machine used for
encryption by the Germans in
World War II
Turing’s machine BOMBE that he
created to decrypt German messages
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