Q.Who is Alan Turing? Why is he such a significant figure, especially in cryptography?
It already has been two years since ‘Imitation Game’ released. Even though Alan Turing was well-known among experts, he was definitely not a popular one among public. However, as his story dramatize admirably in the movie, more public got interested in his life and cryptography.
As it shows in the movie, Alan Turing was outstanding in the fields of math. Actually, describing him as an ‘outstanding person’ is not enough, he was a genius. It was a year before WWII when he entered GCCS, Government Code and Cypher School, and he was nominated, in charge of Hut8. Alan Turing with his teammates of Hut 8, his only goal was to build a decoder for Enigma, the most complicated code then.
It took many attempts to finally achieve his goal, but he could eventually made up “The Bombe” and saved over 14 million people. Some experts asserts that it is not an exaggeration to consider The Bombe as a key tool to end the war.
Alan Turing is a historically remarkable figure in computer science, but why am I concentrating on cryptography? His computer science “helped” humanity to live handy life; his cryptography “saved” humanity from carnage.
The Wonderful World of Algorithms 