Have you ever wished that you could do something heroic to help your
country? When Alan Turing was a boy, he was fascinated by math and
science. Later, Turing's math skills would help Great Britain win World
War II.
Turing's parents and teachers thought he'd be better off dropping math
in favor of more gentlemanly studies, such as literature and Latin. But
he stuck with it, and by the start of World War II in 1939, he was ready
to take on the biggest challenge his country faced: Nazi Germany. Turing
put his advanced knowledge of math to work decoding secret German
messages. His ideas not only helped Great Britain turn the tide of the
war--they provided the foundation upon which much of modern computing
and artificial intelligence is based.