Do you know who Alan Turing is? Mathematician, cryptanalyst, and perhaps the father of modern computing. His work is widely considered to be responsible for shortening WWII by at least two years.
His code breaking machines, long before the days of modern computers, allowed the Allies to decrypt and analyze German communications, even though the Germans were using the “unbreakable” Enigma machines. It is easy to forget just how impressive and important this work was.
In this story one of the code breaking machines, a 6-foot tall electrical and mechanical “computer”, has been reproduced. I think this is a fitting tribute.
Code breaking machine that shortened the Second World War by two years
The rows of silver dials and tangle of scarlet wires look more like a telephone exchange.
But this is the inside of the Turing Bombe, the part-electronic, part-mechanical code-breaking machine and forerunner of the modern computer, which cracked 3,000 messages a day sent on Nazi Enigma machines during the Second World War.
There were 210 such bookcase-like Bombes that gave Britain advance warning of Hitler’s plans and shortened the conflict by two years.
