As part of Maths Week Scotland, we have been learning about Alan Turing a famous mathematician, best known for his role as a code-breaker in World War II.

Here are some of the facts we discovered about him:

• Alan Turing was a British mathematician. During the Second World War, he worked as a codebreaker, cracking German codes created by Enigma machines. His work helped shorten the war by 2 years.
• Alan Turing was born on 23rd June 1912. He had an older brother called John. Their father worked for the British civil service in India. 
• Turing’s parents wanted their sons to be raised in Britain so the boys stayed with family friends while their parents were in India.
• In 1936, Turing created the idea of a special machine that could follow simple codes. He called this the Universal Machine. 
• These machines are now known as a Universal Turing Machine and they formed a lot of the ideas behind computing.
• Turing died in 1952
• On 15th July 2019, the Bank of England announced that Alan Turing’s image would be featured on the new £50 note to celebrate his pioneering work with computers.

Our finished profiles have now been displayed on our maths week board and we hope that other classes in the school will learn more about him from reading our work!