Alan Turing matters on many levels because he was, in the words of the memorial in Manchester:
Father of computer science, mathematician, logician, wartime codebreaker, victim of prejudice
Turing's work has affected us all. He's best know for his involvement in Second World War code breaking (especially for helping to break Engima) and if all he had done was that we would be grateful.
But Turing was also a critical pioneer of computer science. He defined a theoretical model of computers (at a time when 'computer' meant a person, often a woman, who computed numbers) that holds true today. He suggested how we might determine whether a computer was sentient (with the Turing Test).
Turing's death should remind us how prejudice ruins and degrades.
Alan Turing was gay. And he was prosecuted for 'indecent acts' and eventually took his own life aged 41. This man, younger than me, killed himself because at the time homosexuality was illegal and having been prosecuted he was chemically castrated in an attempt to 'cure' him. He had been stripped of his security clearance.
For years, his legacy was largely ignored outside the computer community. To quote Wikipedia:
In 1994 a stretch of the A6010 road (the Manchester city intermediate ring road) was named Alan Turing Way. A bridge carrying this road was widened, and carries the name 'Alan Turing Bridge'.
A frikkin' Ring Road!
It wasn't until 2001 that a statue was erected.
Today is Alan Turing's 97th birthday. Or at least it could have been if it were not for his prosecution and untimely death.
Isn't it time the British Government apologized for the way he was treated? We shouldn't let this anniversary of his death go by without recognizing the great works this man did and the ignominious way in which he was treated.