Alan Turing: The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis

Abstract

Alan Turing should have been a national hero in Great Britain after the Second World War; by his unique accomplishment in solving the code for a captured German encrypting device called “Enigma”, he saved more lives and treasure than any other of his countrymen. Yet his work was “Top Secret” and slated to remain so for another generation; he received no reward or recognition. To the contrary his then unacceptable life style and his naivete in social and political affairs led him afoul of British law. Faced with the choice between prison and pharmaceutical castration he accepted the latter and within a year was dead from the taste of an apple he had laced with cyanide, a macabre re-play of the fairy tale of Snow White.