The Story of Alan Turing

This morning I found myself in the Doctors surgery explaining what a Bonobo was to the nurse Not that it's likely to be something she comes across often in the Lake District, but you never know. It was something ,I told her, that my Autistic had explained to me a couple of weeks ago. "He sounds just like 'Google',she said and lo and behold I had my new blog name for him! So from now on "Google" it is! Google and I went to the cinema to watch The Imitation Game It's the story of mathematician Alan Turing and his successful attempt to decode The Enigma machine during the second World War.  The Imitation Game  has been criticised for being historically inaccurate in many ways , but having read about him after seeing the film,I have come away with a much better perception of how his invention played a huge part in bringing the war to an end, the punishment for homosexuality in the 1950's , the difficulty for women to be accepted as the academic equals of men and an overwhelming desire to visit Bletchley Park and expand my knowledge . The sad thing is that Alan Turing wasn't recognised for his genius during his lifetime and died at the age of 41, having committed suicide. He was only pardoned in December 2013  for his criminal record for being homosexual. Benedict Cumberbatch portrays him as a man with Asperger syndrome, and although the film never says that and there was no diagnosis in Turing's day there has been speculation that he was in fact Autistic. As Google's mother I found his portrayal both heart warming and extremely sad that most people didn't 'get' him. Google however just sighed and said "You think everyone has Aspergers!".I'll leave you to make your own mind up about it ! I gather that there has been much discussion in the scientific world as to whether he was on the spectrum. I don't think it much matters except that we do need to try and understand people better and if a label means that the normal man in the street understands the difficulties and challenges they face and makes compensations for that then it can only be a good thing. I discovered this blog post and found it fascinating If you get the change to see the film I'd recommend it!