I am currently a student in my first year at Heriot Watt University in Galashiels and my last assignment is to produce ten webpages on Netscape about Alan Turing and other people who have attempted to crack the Enigma code during the second World War.

Alan Turing was a young mathematics student who wore a jacket and tie, of course, just as all students did in those days. But he managed to make his clothes look as though he'd bought them in a rummage sale. He never seemed to comb his hair or clean his fingernails. He often neglected to shave, since he might nick himself and would invariably faint at the sight of blood.

In addition, he was rude, the kind of guy who thought it redundant to acknowledge your existence if he'd already said hello to you once that morning. And he had this voice. It was a high-pitched stammer when he talked, a nervous crowing sound when he laughed and a kind of random squeak when he was lost in thought.

Turing got along well enough with his classmates, who found him to be a witty and lively, albeit odd, companion. Visitors to his rooms might find his teddy bear propped in front of the fire with a book.

But Turing was a very solitary young man. He had been born in 1912, the second son of parents who felt it best to leave their boys in foster care while they were away from England during their man tours of duty with the Indian Civil Service.

As a result, Alan grew up a shy, awkward, excitable lad, brilliant at mathematics and science but a comparative stranger to his parents and to almost everyone else. By the time he entered Cambridge, moreover, Turing had realized that he was homosexual, a secret reality that he hid from almost everyone, at the price of constant internal agonizing.

In these web pages I will also look at the work of the Turing Machine and how if functions, as well as The Enigma Machine and the work done at Bletchley Park during WW2.

I have composed the following web pages for the assignment:

Alan Turing
The Turing Machine
The Turing Machine (Continued)
Codebreaking
Bletchley Park
The Enigma Machine
The Naval Enigma
Breaking the Naval Enigma
The Turing Test

I hope you find this page useful  and I must point out that it is all already on the web as a lot of it is cut and pasted from various sites.