Month: December 2018

Publicly recognised as a war hero long after his death, Alan Mathison Turing was born in London in 1912 and by age nine was already being hailed as a “genius” by his schoolteachers. He studied advanced science in his leisure time, took his mathematics degree at Cambridge and his PhD at Princeton.

He published a paper in 1936 on ‘computing machines’ and at the start of World War 2 in 1939 began working at Bletchley Park, where he and a small team of codebreakers used such machines on the enemy’s secret communications. He famously broke the Enigma code used for messages to German submarines in the Atlantic. It is estimated that this saved millions of lives and shortened the War by as much as two years.

He continued in the field of computer science and machine intelligence post-War at the National Physical Laboratory and the University of Manchester, and is often called ‘the father of modern computing’ for laying down the theory. Sadly, he took his own life in 1954. He is featured on the new £50 note first issued on his birthdate in 2021.

(Images LtoR: TedColes at Wikimedia Commons / Public domain & unknown at Wikimedia Commons / Public domain)

It is said that the railways were the supreme achievement of the Victorian era in Britain. Cornishman Richard Trevithick (1771-1833) was the first to build a series of short-range prototypes in 1801-4, developed from his portable steam engines that were used in the Cornish mines, but his engineering talent then turned in another direction. The world’s first operational railway lines were in fact opened in the north of England in 1825-6.

They provided cheap, fast transport for passengers and commerce alike. Railway systems were later exported to countries such as the USA, Australia, India and to the continent of Europe.

The railways changed daily lives. By the ingenuity of engineers like Stephenson, Brunel and Locke, trains opened up the whole country to one and all. Commuting into cities became a possibility, enabling families to live further out in newly-built suburbs. Seaside resorts enjoyed thousands more regular visitors and sports such as football were able to establish national leagues.

Initially there was some resistance from landowners, farmers and those who earned a living from the canals, but the advantages soon overcame this. There were, however, many fatal accidents in the early days, with previously unknown speeds of around 30mph catching some people unawares.

(Image: pxhere.com / CC0)