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53 - A gay show for smart people: Alan Turing
45 Plays26 days ago
Happy Pride!!!
Jeff shares the story of Alan Turing. Turing was a pioneering British mathematician and logician. Best known for his contributions to computer science and helping the allies win World War 2 against the Nazis. He was also gay so his story is less known because of this. Enjoy this dive into history for Pride.
Visit us on Linktree for the collection of links, Instagram, or email us at jeffandsamshow@gmail.com.
Jeff’s sources:
- Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing: The Enigma. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.
- The First Huts – Bletchley Park
- Alan Turing and His Legacy – Dermot Turing
- Alan Turing – Wikipedia
- Alan Turing’s Childhood Story – More Than Our Childhoods
- A Valentine Memoriam: Alan Turing & Christopher Morcom
- Alan Turing Tribute – YouTube
- LGBT+ History Month: Alan Turing and His Enduring Legacy – Education Hub
Recommended
Transcript
Happy Pride and Show Anniversary
00:00:00
Jeff Rogers
Hello, Sam. Hi, Jeff. Happy Pride. Happy Pride.
00:00:26
Jeff Rogers
Oh my God. Welcome to the Jeff. Becky, her butt. Becky, look at her butt. Welcome to the Jeff and Sam show. I'm Jeff. And I'm Sam. And Sam, it's been a year. It's been a year.
00:00:39
Jeff Rogers
We've been doing this show for one year. That's insane. Weekly for one year. That's dedication. you know what? And I don't hate you yet. No. it says something. Yeah, we still enjoy doing this. do. And we enjoy feedback. We do.
00:00:54
Jeff Rogers
It's become kind of, it's fun now. It's just a part of life. It's just a part of life. We enjoy It's our happy place. And also... What?
Pride Celebrations and Weather Talk
00:01:04
Jeff Rogers
Because it's our one year anniversary in June, June is also... bun! Hey! And she's wearing a shirt that says i just look straight.
00:01:12
Jeff Rogers
And my humankind swim trunks. It's cute outfit you have. Thanks. How are you? I was going wear my button up that's rainbow tie dye that I wore last year.
00:01:24
Jeff Rogers
ah We still have more episodes to come out this month. We do. I think next time, like the next time we record, let's... take pictures all like done up listen for pride you know that i will do that oh my god will she ever well yes absolutely um how are you i'm good how are you i'm good i'm loving in this weather something's stuck on my hold okay we're good yeah it's like 74 degrees outside sunny and 74 that's a country song
00:01:58
Jeff Rogers
Is it really? Rather sunny in 75. Sunny in 75. But yeah, it's beautiful out. Oh, it's perfect. Is it going to be a good weather for Pride this weekend? Ish. Ish. Oh, really? Ish.
00:02:10
Jeff Rogers
Like, it's tomorrow goes up to, what, 85 degrees? Ooh. So, but I mean, every year it's balls hot. Like... So this is what happened when I moved back from Hawaii in 2019.
00:02:26
Jeff Rogers
The first day of June was like 68
World Pride Significance and Humorous Banter
00:02:30
Jeff Rogers
and it didn't get warm until like solidly June, you know, was like, I need the warm weather. i need the warm weather. Weather. I need warmth.
00:02:40
Jeff Rogers
So what are you doing this weekend? I am doing the thing. yeah um Friday is float day or Sam Fest, as everyone from last year remembers our struggle.
00:02:52
Jeff Rogers
um And then I'm going into D.C. at a hotel room for the weekend so that I didn't have to drive in and out. Because it is not only pride in D.C., but it is world pride. does that mean, actually? What is world pride? i mean How is that different than the main pride? Every place has their own pride celebration. right you know Some places it's October, some places it's September. right um so World pride is just the coming together of pride.
00:03:25
Jeff Rogers
the entire world that is so cool it was chosen that it was going to be in dc this year um which down the road down the road down the road gonna take the tube into dc do we know um where it's been in the past i don't know off top of my head if i had to guess i would say it's been in oslo norway probably stockholm sweden Paris, London, Berlin,
00:04:01
Jeff Rogers
all the cool places I can think of. Let's see. If I had to guess. July 1st through the 9th in 2000, was the inaugural year in Rome, Italy. Oh. um it has been in Sydney.
00:04:21
Jeff Rogers
year it's in DC, obviously.
00:04:30
Jeff Rogers
It's biannual. we got that Jerusalem. oh London. of course. Sydney, of course, too. i don't know why i didn't think about Sydney. Toronto. Of course.
00:04:47
Jeff Rogers
Madrid.
00:04:50
Jeff Rogers
New York. That was the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. Oh, that's cool. 2019. Copenhagen. ah new Scandinavia.
00:05:01
Jeff Rogers
Sydney. i mean, look at the opera house. That's the gayest thing I've ever seen. I've seen a lot gay stuff. You look in the mirror every day.
00:05:12
Jeff Rogers
Touche. Touche. Touche. But that's it. That's it so far. That's cool. It's biannual. Super cool. I went to that opera house one time and... When it was gay?
00:05:26
Jeff Rogers
No, it wasn't that gay. I mean, it was gay. Because you were there. Because I was there. But we went and into the opera house. We had a tour. This lady was giving us a tour of the opera house. And we went into the main theater because there's multiple theaters in there.
00:05:42
Jeff Rogers
While we were in the main theater, she said that she used to perform opera in that opera house. And we were like, what? She said, would you like to hear a little bit? And she started singing and it just echoed off of the walls. It was beautiful.
00:05:59
Jeff Rogers
Beautiful. yeah it was a cool experience. Unreal. Didn't look gay like that, though. I'm kind of jealous. I was a little gay because you were there. It was a lot gay because I was there. Absolutely.
00:06:10
Jeff Rogers
More gayness. Extra gayness. and You know what? i was I went to work out today and I was trying to get myself in the right frame of mind to record the show
Pride Playlist and Favorite Show Stories
00:06:20
Jeff Rogers
because we got to be like A little upbeat. It's Pride. It's like we're recording.
00:06:26
Jeff Rogers
And so then you sent me the picture of your Spotify playlist. And gone I searched Gay Pride and Apple Music.
00:06:37
Jeff Rogers
And I was dancing around here like a fool. When I came in, you had your little fairy wand and you were dancing to Vogue. And there's nothing gayer. Thank you. love it. Thank you It is Pride Month. It is. We can be as gay as we want.
00:06:51
Jeff Rogers
ah Yeah, we, you know what? I mean, every day we're gays. Sam's looking at her phone. She's doing something. People are texting me and it's stupid. Turn it off.
00:07:01
Jeff Rogers
Like a light switch. Not the gay, just the phone. Just the phone. Just the phone. Yeah, so I searched Pride in Apple Music and then, i mean, like,
00:07:12
Jeff Rogers
Well, I mean, you and I were talking about because you don't have Spotify, which you're one of very few people. And I will tell you, anytime somebody asks about the show, they always tell me they listen on Spotify. But like if you just type in Pride in the search bar, look at how many.
00:07:28
Jeff Rogers
Yep. Yep. And they're, and they're all, they're super variable, you know, and it's, it's just good. well And I typed it in on Apple. We had the same songs because you sent me the screenshot of yours.
00:07:42
Jeff Rogers
Who was the first on the list?
00:07:47
Jeff Rogers
Let's see the screenshot. It was believe by Cher for me. And then vogue and of course it's like the same thing. and and then Kylie Minogue. Hello. Hello. hello Do you want to give me a rendition belief? You know, I really don't. Thank you for asking, though.
00:08:04
Jeff Rogers
I'll only sing on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, never.
00:08:11
Jeff Rogers
Ooh, that sound. What was that The speaker cutoff. Oh. Oh, you know what? Let's cheer this quiz just because we can. and Indeed. We can keep talking if we want. Which one do you want? I'll do the soleil. Okay.
00:08:22
Jeff Rogers
Mm-hmm. I'm going to drink a puppy. Ooh, you love your poppy. Mine is a sole blood orange. Mine is a ginger lime.
00:08:32
Jeff Rogers
Hey, hey, hey. You know I love my ginger. I think I say that every week. Hey, hey, hey. You do, probably.
00:08:40
Jeff Rogers
Oh, Oh. so I also have your smoothie in the freezer. Hold, let me get that. It's your green smoothie. It is um extra ginger and extra gayness.
00:08:55
Jeff Rogers
As we established, extra gayness is the only way to go. Yeah, we always need extra gayness. She's going to get her smoothie and her cute shorts. Humankind.
00:09:07
Jeff Rogers
Humankind. I don't know why sing. Sorry. you gay the dogs are barking. Cats are screaming.
00:09:19
Jeff Rogers
um Cheers, Squirtz. cheers to all the queers cheers to all the queers happy pride 2025 happy one year anniversary to you samantha and this show this is crazy we've we have done a lot we've done a lot of work what's what's your favorite story that you've done
00:09:42
Jeff Rogers
i don't know if i could pick i think the one that i just did was yeah really good to do um um
00:09:51
Jeff Rogers
I will tell you still yeah my favorite is Pedro. yeah There's nothing, and that was not that was the best I could do at the time because it was a brand new show, but that is still one of my favorite stories. The story of, here we are a year later and I'm still talking about Pedro Zamora.
00:10:07
Jeff Rogers
I mean, there's something to be said about it being your first show. I mean, it was the first thing that came in mind is what you wanted to share with. the you know i really like the Sea Wall Ferry. Virginia Hall is up there at the top of the list for me. Okay.
00:10:23
Jeff Rogers
I have to tell you, the Sea Wall Ferry does not go on my list of tops because it's traumatizing. And I've told some really horrible stories, but something about that. I told you every time think about it.
00:10:36
Jeff Rogers
I go home and I think about it as like the Titanic and 9 11. It was horrible. and You did great. Oh yeah. i mean But it was just like, it's a story that kind of haunted me and stuck with me a little bit.
00:10:50
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. If you haven't listened to it, it's in the catalog of shows that we have because we've been doing this for a year, year. a year i don't know. I think I, maybe, I don't know.
00:11:01
Jeff Rogers
I would have to look at them. I'm looking at right now and like each one I see, I'm like, well, that's good. But then, then our favorite one is always definitely the ones we're going to tell soon. Yeah. There's more coming. I mean, this one today, I've, I've kind of like,
00:11:16
Jeff Rogers
become obsessed with this person that I'm doing today because you'll see why. So there's more to come. And the the favorite one for me is Pedro, obviously.
00:11:28
Jeff Rogers
um there's more, there's better ones to come. are you know Equally as good. I think if I were to pick one, it would be my the Finnish skier. absolutely.
00:11:43
Jeff Rogers
Because that was a survival story. And just had so much fun telling it to. What was his name? Amo, um, Kukuk, Amo, it was very, very Finnish, obviously.
00:11:55
Jeff Rogers
Um.
00:11:59
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. I just keep calling him my Finnish skier. That's one of those that I love the most from you. That was relatively recent, right? Two months ago, maybe?
00:12:10
Jeff Rogers
Anyway, the point is, we've got some favorites behind us and we've got some favorites ahead of us.
00:12:18
Jeff Rogers
Your turn, Sam.
00:12:22
Jeff Rogers
And we have silence. Silence. Was I supposed to go somewhere? I don't know. Oh, no maybe we should do this. Oh, my God. First of all, you guys might have noticed that we changed our name week to a more us show.
00:12:37
Jeff Rogers
Because this is just the Jeff and Sam show. I mean, it's whatever we want it to be. There's nothing special about it in one way or the other. It's just you and me. It's me and you. It's the Jeff and Sam show from now on.
00:12:51
Jeff Rogers
Period. Period. And that's where you can find us now on Instagram. And we actually have our very own website that Jeff in a sleepy, ah slumberous, right before he went to sleep state.
00:13:07
Jeff Rogers
Created a website. Created a website.
New Website and Storytelling Format
00:13:09
Jeff Rogers
don't even know how I did it. Neither do but you did. now have... There was alcohol involved. I know. Well, that's why I want to say drunken stupor, but it was a sleepy stupor. It's like I was so sober. Yeah.
00:13:19
Jeff Rogers
Created a website. So the Jeff and Sam show on Instagram and jeffandsamshow.com is our... We have it. We have a.com. Who has a.com? You do. We do. We do. Hey.
00:13:30
Jeff Rogers
And please give us five stars if we haven't harassed you enough already. Yeah. We're going to keep doing it. Yeah, we are. so give us five stars. And you can find us, so the Jeff and Sam Show on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeartRadio.
00:13:45
Jeff Rogers
Follow us, rate us, review us. Five stars. Leave five stars. Did we say that already? i don't think so. Say it one more time. Leave five stars. Leave five stars. Okay. You heard us, okay? Indeed.
00:13:56
Jeff Rogers
So, um, and then usually i want to say that we tell two stories on this show, but for time reasons over the next month, two months, we're going to, um, be telling one story per episode because we're going on vacations and we want to give you guys a little something along the way.
00:14:14
Jeff Rogers
So we're not going to do two stories per episode. Like we usually do. We'll go back to that, but we're going to do one story. So the episodes might be a little bit shorter or you know what, maybe if we talk enough, they'll be just as long. But even though we normally tell the completely unrelated stories this month-ish, just like the last two episodes are going to be different.
00:14:33
Jeff Rogers
Single. We're going to be flying solo on these stories, on these episodes. So should we begin? I think you should start and open your vortex of fuckery. Here's the deal.
00:14:45
Jeff Rogers
That vortex of fuckery is always open. Now, do you think that this gentleman went down in the Hall of Flames? I think he definitely went down in the Hall of Flames. Perfect. Of course. spent some time there. It's a great place.
00:14:57
Jeff Rogers
Let's do it then. Tell me your story. like I can't believe that music picked me up so much. i was like, I don't think I can record. I'm so tired because I worked the last four days. Yeah. And... And I don't know why we decided to do today, but we're doing today. Madonna, Cher, Kylie, you picked me up. Lady Gaga. Some Kesha in there. Please, like they've always done. Obviously, Chapel Rhone.
00:15:23
Jeff Rogers
Okay, so um want to do a story today for you about a man who literally... changed the course of history he altered the course of history one man one man altered with the help of people obviously but his brain altered the course of history and i'm not like you know making that up he really hit the consequences of his actions stopped war it's not dramatic this is not a dramatization
00:16:00
Jeff Rogers
As dramatic as I am, this is not a dramatization. Okay, but I'm gonna tell you a
Introduction to Bletchley Park and WWII Codebreaking
00:16:06
Jeff Rogers
few things first. I'm gonna tell you this like you don't know it, though I know you know it, because you were working on the same story.
00:16:11
Jeff Rogers
and was. For the first time in a year, we were both doing the same story. And then we figured it out on last week's show. By chance. By chance. um Okay, so two definitions, okay?
00:16:24
Jeff Rogers
Bletchley Park. If you're in the UK, obviously you know what Bletchley Park is. If you're in America, might not. So that was used as the main center for the British codebreakers during World War II, where they successfully deciphered encrypted communications.
00:16:40
Jeff Rogers
Okay. Specifically from the German Enigma machine, which significantly contributed to the Allies' victory in World War II. Within Bletchley Park, there were different huts where people worked, and each hut housed something different.
00:16:55
Jeff Rogers
Okay? The next is the Enigma. So specifically for today, we're going to be talking about the Enigma, the German Enigma. um It was a machine.
00:17:08
Jeff Rogers
it was very sophisticated and it was used to cipher messages used by Nazi Germany in World War Two. It encrypted military communications. It used multiple rotors and had a plug board to create complex substitutions, making the encrypted messages extremely difficult, if not almost impossible to decipher.
00:17:33
Jeff Rogers
So we've got Bletchley Park and the Enigma. So now we know. So Bletchley Park is like the nerd version of Epcot, right? With a bunch of different worlds. and What's the um equivalent of Bletchley Park in America?
00:17:48
Jeff Rogers
It's like the CIA headquarters, the FBI headquarters. the I wouldn't say that because it's it was specific for... It's more of like an NSA hub. Yes. you know Okay.
00:18:00
Jeff Rogers
So that's the equivalent, kind of, of a Bletchley Park. So on the 2nd August, 1939, war with Germany was imminent. Vulnerable in central London, the government code and cipher school prepared to evacuate to its wartime home, Bletchley Park.
00:18:18
Jeff Rogers
Detailed orders issued to staff asked them to pack their papers in a small, lockable closet by 5.30 p.m. on the 14th of August. These would be transferred to Bletchley Park overnight. Staff themselves had to arrive on site at Bletchley Park at 10 a.m. m on the 15th of August.
00:18:35
Jeff Rogers
Any curious locals would be told that activities at built but Bletchley Park were related to aerial defense of London. The mansion and the first huts were ready and waiting, but the growing organization quickly required more working accommodation.
00:18:52
Jeff Rogers
New huts were planned and built during August of 1939, and growth continued as the war began. Hut one was a small wooden hut.
00:19:02
Jeff Rogers
It housed SIS Wireless Station until November of 1939. Hut two functioned primarily as recreation. You could go there and have a fag, have a drink, whatever you wanted to do.
00:19:16
Jeff Rogers
and just for clarification, ah fag in this context. Is a cigarette. You couldn't just have a fag. Right. Good. Good clarification. Hut 2 also housed the lending library from the middle of 1942. It was used two evenings per week for the naval section German and Italian language classes.
00:19:37
Jeff Rogers
Another hut was built in 1939. One of the other huts housed something else. But Hut 8, inside that hut, is where the magic was happening. And by magic, I mean the genius minds gathered to defend the United Kingdom kingdom and help the Allies win World War two This was the hut that housed Alan Turing's Naval Enigma Processing and Decryption section.
00:20:03
Jeff Rogers
Okay?
Alan Turing's Contributions to Codebreaking
00:20:05
Jeff Rogers
Alan Turing is like one of my new heroes. He was a British pioneering mathematician and logician. He was best known for his contributions to computer science.
00:20:17
Jeff Rogers
During World War II, with his brilliant mind, Turing helped defeat the Nazis and altered the course of history. Yet, after afterwards, after the war, he was prosecuted for being a gay man.
00:20:30
Jeff Rogers
It's a remarkable story, and it's also a sad story, but as we always say, it's a story worth telling by far. It's an amazing story. So Alan was born. He reminds me of our Alan. Just FYI.
00:20:48
Jeff Rogers
Brain clicks, clicks, clicks. So Alan Turing was born June 23, 1912 in Maida Vale, London. His father worked for the Indian Civil Service and his mom, Ethel, came from Ireland.
00:21:01
Jeff Rogers
There's a little blue plaque on the wall of his childhood home today that says, Codebreaker and Pioneer of Computer Science was born here. Turing was in foster care for most of his first eight years.
00:21:11
Jeff Rogers
His father, Julius Turing, was a public servant service ah public servant in the Indian Civil Service and in insisted that he and his wife, Ethel, return to India without their two sons.
00:21:24
Jeff Rogers
I don't know why. um
00:21:28
Jeff Rogers
I don't know. I mean... that You don't want to bring a kid into that? Like, maybe it wasn't safe? Maybe he just never wanted kids? Right. Either way, the boys were left in foster care with Mr. and Mrs. Colonel Ward in East Sussex.
00:21:44
Jeff Rogers
So Alan went to St. Michael's Primary School, and he attended Hazelhurst Prep School in 1922. His genius really started to shine there. He became very interested in chess and spent hours working out complex chess problems all alone.
00:22:02
Jeff Rogers
like Like you do, Sam. i was just... That concept... And I don't mean this. And I mean, I don't mean to make fun of people who do that.
00:22:13
Jeff Rogers
But to me, it doesn't make sense. Because why? oh why my God. i get it. It's a thing. And I know that it's a really smart thing. But I'm not a really smart person. So that really doesn't sit with me.
00:22:25
Jeff Rogers
And the reason why I said it reminds me of our Ellen is because last year I played the swear to God, I played the game Clue with all of them. And I sat down for the fun of it. Right.
00:22:36
Jeff Rogers
You still talk about how much you hate this moment. Alan was sitting across the table and he had an enigma written out on that damn piece of paper of deductions.
00:22:48
Jeff Rogers
So he could figure out who killed who and what room with what. And he won. But the whole time I'm like, this is not fun. This went from being kind of fun to absolutely not fun when I saw that thing on his paper.
00:23:03
Jeff Rogers
Alan, that was traumatic. Thank you. Yeah, he honestly, he talks about it all how much he hates board games because of that night. Never again. So he attended Hazlehurst, and then at 13, Turing attended Sherbourne School.
00:23:17
Jeff Rogers
His math teacher labeled him a genius. And he was one of those students who had always he was always distracted in class, but he still made the best grades. He was a natural at math and science, and it was at Sherbourne where Alan Turing met Christopher Morkum.
00:23:34
Jeff Rogers
It's well known today that Christopher was Turing's big love. They got along really well in school. Turing, he wasn't a social person, but Christopher was someone who he he could confide in and he could talk to.
00:23:45
Jeff Rogers
They talked about everything from fungi to the stars. However, Christopher died shortly after that in 1930 from tuberculosis. Allen went to King's College for undergraduate from 31 to 34.
00:24:00
Jeff Rogers
He was eventually awarded first-class honors in mathematics. It was here where he took up rowing and long-distance running, and running is something that he would carry with him throughout his life.
00:24:11
Jeff Rogers
At King's College, Turing became involved in the peace movement, and he joined the Anti-War Council, called for workers to strike if war was declared. Later, because of his dissertation in which he proved the central limit theorem, he was elected a fellow at King's College at the age of 22.
00:24:28
Jeff Rogers
Turing had the kind of mind that turned every abstract math problem into a problem that could be solved. Advances in the foundation of mathematics in the early 20th century made it possible in the 1920s to first formulate a question of whether there's such a systemic way to find a solution to every mathematical problem.
00:24:51
Jeff Rogers
I feel dumb just listening to you. I feel dumb just reading this. This became known as the decision problem, and it was considered a major open problem in the 20s and the 30s.
Turing's Innovations and WWII Impact
00:25:02
Jeff Rogers
Alan Turing dove headfirst straight in, and he solved it in his groundbreaking paper on computable numbers.
00:25:11
Jeff Rogers
To Turing, the obvious answer was that a machine should be able to solve every problem.
00:25:17
Jeff Rogers
Okay, so Turing and his amazing brain creates this imaginary machine composed of infinite paper tape and a pointer that could write and erase symbols. Turing's mind worked the way a computer does, so he had this idea of this machine and this paper tape that would one day became but become the basis for the computer.
00:25:37
Jeff Rogers
In 1936, Turing went to Princeton University and he studied mathematics. In 1938, he earns his PhD in mathematics. And it was during this time in Princeton in New Jersey that Alan Turing became really interested in cryptology, or the study of codes and ciphers.
00:25:56
Jeff Rogers
This became a hobby for him. It was something fun and different, something that wasn't so serious like math. Oh, yeah, codes, ciphers, not serious. and um Keep in mind, I love this man. i know. He's he's ah he's extraordinary.
00:26:10
Jeff Rogers
and We're getting there. but he What? We're not there yet? Nope. no Okay, because all of the things that he's done so far, super, just below anyone.
00:26:21
Jeff Rogers
Right? I could do it. Right? So eventually, Turing returned to Cambridge where he was well known for his brilliant mind. He thought about things differently than other people. And September 1st, 1939, Germany invades Poland and World War II starts.
00:26:39
Jeff Rogers
Most men in the United Kingdom went across Europe to fight the Nazis, but the smartest of the smart stayed behind to help the fight from home. By this time, Turing's hobby of cryptal cryptology turned into a career.
00:26:52
Jeff Rogers
Since 1938, he had been working with the government code and cipher school, and this was useful in World War II. Turing was focused on cryptoanalysis of the Enigma, and the Enigma machine was a type of enciphering machine used by the German armed forces to send messages securely.
00:27:09
Jeff Rogers
And although Polish mathematicians had worked out how to read the Enigma, messages from the 30s had shared this information with the British, the Germans increased their security at the outbreak of the war by changing the cipher daily. The crazy thing is is that there's Alan Turing, right?
00:27:28
Jeff Rogers
But there's the people that are creating this in Germany, right? Oh, absolutely. Daily. They change the cipher code daily. They're so much smart. Right? They're so much smart.
00:27:40
Jeff Rogers
This made the task of understanding the code even more difficult. Some might say impossible. Absolutely. The radio waves had become an important part of the battlefield. I mean, radio waves were, they transported a lot of information involving enemy movements and even attack orders.
00:27:57
Jeff Rogers
By using radio waves, you left yourself, you left yourself, you left yourself open interception. And by this point, the Germans are heavily reliant on the Enigma machine.
00:28:10
Jeff Rogers
And food for thought is that the Enigma machine could be configured in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 different ways. It would be hard to break with modern computers.
00:28:24
Jeff Rogers
It was built to be this unbreakable code. And here comes Mr. Genius, Alan Turing himself. how old was he this point?
00:28:36
Jeff Rogers
which we know is the work the wartime station um someone was quoted as saying you needed a genius at this place and touring he was that genius and how old was he at this point Like he um thirty two he, 32, 30, 32, 35, somewhere around there.
00:28:55
Jeff Rogers
So this was basically the headquarters in the UK. Turing is now, he's with the best of the best. And he was never good at socializing and he struggled to fit in. Not a lot of people really understood him, but he had this strict daily routine and he was doing what he loved to do.
00:29:11
Jeff Rogers
And when he was there, this is when Bletchley Park was one of the United Kingdom's most secret things, right? Even spouses didn't know their spouse worked at Bletchley Park, even if they themselves worked at Bletchley Park. They would find out after the war.
00:29:27
Jeff Rogers
You worked there? So did I. Yeah. It was covered by the Official Secrets Act. Starting in 1941, Turing was the head of Hutt 8.
00:29:38
Jeff Rogers
His job was to crack the Enigma Code, and he helped he was helped by three Polish men who made the breakthroughs in the 1930s. I'm going to tell you how this Enigma machine works.
00:29:50
Jeff Rogers
Tell me. In the most basic bitch Jeff way. I don't even know if that'll be basic enough for me, but go. do you understand I've had to sit and read this over?
00:30:02
Jeff Rogers
But here, you're going to understand it, okay? Sure. I think. um so Okay, the Enigma machine looks sort of like an old typewriter. And each letter is backed by a light.
00:30:15
Jeff Rogers
When you press a letter on the keyboard, an entirely different letter lights up on the top of the machine showing what this letter has been replaced with inside the encrypted message. Inside the machine are three physical rotors.
00:30:29
Jeff Rogers
Each one is taking in one letter and outputting a different letter and passing it to the next rotor. okay For example, let's say you type in a J into the machine.
00:30:41
Jeff Rogers
The first rotor changes it to an E, the second rotor changes it to an O, and the third rotor will change it to an N. And that letter is the one that lights up on the screen.
00:30:53
Jeff Rogers
but J will not become an N every time. It's completely random as the rotors are working independently. Each time a button is pressed, the sender copies the letter and sends encryption using the Morse code.
00:31:07
Jeff Rogers
The system relies on the sender and the receiver setting up their Enigma machines in the same pattern at the beginning of the every day. Yeah, because it changes every day So if I'm sending you an Enigma message, I have to tell you what settings are.
00:31:22
Jeff Rogers
I'm using. So you can turn your machine on and it reverses. Yeah. Crazy, huh? What happens if you don't tell the other person what the settings are? Nobody's ever going to get it.
00:31:34
Jeff Rogers
You're screwed. And you i have to tell you what the settings are every day. Jeff just told me to go find a purple cat. And Sam goes running out looking for our purple. That's us. Okay. That's me. And you're not Alan Turing though.
00:31:47
Jeff Rogers
Okay. youre Right. You're right. Not these genius German Nazis either. Okay, so like i said, the system relies on each sender or the sender telling the receiver the code every day. Also, Turing knew that no letter in the Enigma could be represented by itself.
00:32:04
Jeff Rogers
So like the letter A could never end up as an A. So when the receiver writes down this code that they've received in this gibberish and starts their own Enigma machine, the code then reverses itself.
00:32:16
Jeff Rogers
Now, you have to know the machine's initial code or configuration to figure out the code, and it was technically supposed to be impossible to figure out. The Polish mathematicians had already developed a machine to help break the enigma in the 1930s.
00:32:30
Jeff Rogers
At first, they focused on repetition of the message. This meant that they would be able to do... We're going to get into more common stuff in just a minute, okay? Okay. This meant that they would be able to deduce the internal wiring of the Enigma rotors so that they were able to build a replica Enigma machine, which they called the bomber machine.
00:32:49
Jeff Rogers
Okay. So in the 30s, they had their bomber machine. It's not a bomb. It's a computer. They used it to crack the codes just before World War II began, and they passed all this information on to Bletchley Park.
00:33:03
Jeff Rogers
Okay. Okay. Of course, by now the Germans had developed an even more elaborate Enigma machine, and the Polish bomber was obsolete. But the British had two things going for them.
00:33:16
Jeff Rogers
They had blueprints, and they had Alan Turing. okay Okay. then turret Turing built the British bomb. Again, the machine to decipher So we're months into the war and the UK has intercept stations all around, intercepting stuff from the Germans, including Enigma codes.
00:33:38
Jeff Rogers
British had to crack the codes daily to keep up. And they were doing it. Only the Germans could change the refriguration of all their Enigma machines. So Bletchley Park had 24 hours to crack the code and then they had to start over the next day.
00:33:53
Jeff Rogers
And there were 3,000 to 5,000 Enigma messages intercepted by the British. So if a message was sent on a Monday and they didn't,
00:34:08
Jeff Rogers
they didn't crack the code on Monday, then that, that, that message by Tuesday, yep they would never be able to figure it out because the machine like configuration had changed. So if they put it into the machine, they had, it would come up with a different message.
00:34:26
Jeff Rogers
So the team at Bletchley Park, if the team at Bletchley Park had 10 men checking one setting ah minute for 24 hours a day and seven days a week, it would take 20 million years to get through each one. And they only had 24 hours.
00:34:44
Jeff Rogers
The Germans went above and beyond on this one. mean i mean, you gotta give it to them. Yeah. But the Brits, again, had Mr. Turing. And he decides to attack the Enigma with cribs.
00:34:55
Jeff Rogers
Essentially, he was comparing the patterns of the encrypted message to the known portion of the plain text. So essentially there were words that he knew or that would be known to appear in the text, right?
00:35:08
Jeff Rogers
Every morning there was a weather report. Okay. Okay? and So in the weather report, you're going to have the words the, Germany, weather, and Heil Hitler.
00:35:21
Jeff Rogers
Of course. Turing knew that if they could find these words each day in the Enigma, it would be easier to break. Also, they knew that no letter in the enigma could be represented by itself.
00:35:32
Jeff Rogers
For example, an A would never be an A. So they know like five words, and they can find them, and no letter will be the same. This narrowed it down, but there were still 159 quintillion possible combinations every day.
00:35:50
Jeff Rogers
And Turing realized that his approach could be mechanized. So Turing created his own bomb machine with the help of a man named Gordon Welchman. Welchman introduced the idea of a diagonal board.
00:36:02
Jeff Rogers
Basically, this would... Sorry.
00:36:07
Jeff Rogers
Stay with me. It gets better. with you. I'm with you. We have smart people that listen to the show that are going to appreciate this. just keep... the the The one thought that keeps going through my mind is, God, they're so smart.
00:36:19
Jeff Rogers
It's san I can't even play Clue. Okay. I got nothing. So he invented a new bomb machine with the help of Mr. Welchman, right?
00:36:33
Jeff Rogers
And there was a diagonal board and that prevented positives. But the Turing-Welchman bomb machine was a big electro... mechanical machine featuring multiple drums and each one represented a rotor on an enigma machine The bomb was the equivalent of 36 different enigmas all working at the same time and checking thousands and thousands of possible rotor positions until it eventually found a potential match.
00:36:57
Jeff Rogers
Blah-bidi-blah-bidi-blah-bidi-blah. We're finding matches now. Okay. The machine goes and goes and only stops when each of the drums finds what's believed to believe be a correct set of letters.
00:37:09
Jeff Rogers
This was successful. It would find one possible correct combination out of 159 quintillion different combinations. Then afterwards, mostly women because humans had to figure out the rest and it was mostly women sitting there figuring out the rest of them.
00:37:29
Jeff Rogers
The first bomb was called Victory, and it was based on Turing's original design. It was installed in Hut 1 at Bletchley Park on March 18, 1940. On April 26, the German trawler, or boat, was captured, and on board there were some Enigma keys. Ooh. from the 23rd to the 26th of april ships would have to set sail with these enigma codes or keys on board for the next few days so that they could keep up so sam if you're going out on a boat for four days i have to give you all the codes for the next four days so you can unravel my enigma wo right so they've got this boat they've got the codes
00:38:05
Jeff Rogers
Turing used the Enigma keys from the boat, the trawler, to retrospectively understand some of the messages sent during this time period in April. And this proved that the machines worked.
00:38:17
Jeff Rogers
And retrospectively wasn't particularly helpful at the time, but it proved that it was possible. That he was doing something, yeah. A second bomb machine was installed on the 8th of August, 1940, the same time they used Welchman's diagonal board.
00:38:33
Jeff Rogers
By the end of 1940, they managed to break 178 messages. By 1941, they had a better better system in place for decrypting enigmas, but they had limited staff.
00:38:45
Jeff Rogers
So it wasn't possible for them to translate every single message that came through because 3,000 to 5,000 per day at this point. But the bomb machines were able to decipher every single enigma that was put through it.
00:38:58
Jeff Rogers
So if they could only put 500 a day through it, they solved every one of those. yeah But there were 3,000 to 5,000.
00:39:07
Jeff Rogers
They're cracking the enigmas, but they need more resources. It's too bureaucratic. um So they try to get more funding, but they fail. So the team does the only thing they can think of, and they write a letter directly to Prime Minister Winston Churchill explaining their situation. It's good to do. They emphasize the importance of their work and how much they can accomplish if they have more money.
00:39:32
Jeff Rogers
So the Prime Minister writes a letter to General Ismay, the Chief Military Assistant, and says to action the letter that very day.
Churchill's Support and Turing's Codebreaking Achievements
00:39:42
Jeff Rogers
Basically Churchill said give them whatever the fuck they want.
00:39:47
Jeff Rogers
Churchill makes them an extreme priority. Turing and the rest of the staff never heard anything from anyone and assumed that Churchill never got the letter. But suddenly, from that day on, things were faster and they had more funding.
00:40:04
Jeff Rogers
And these bombs were placed all over a Buckinghamshire because real bombs were dropping everywhere in England. So they had to place them in random places. So that if one but got destroyed... Yep.
00:40:16
Jeff Rogers
um Eventually, more than 200 bombs were in operation in the United Kingdom. In 1943, Turing's bomb machines were decoded decoding 84,000 Enigma messages every single month.
00:40:30
Jeff Rogers
This was providing crucial information about the Germans. And once the machines were doing most of the work, Turing turned his personal interest into ciphering German naval Enigma.
00:40:43
Jeff Rogers
Ooh. Chapter two. Yeah. So the enig the Naval Enigma was even more complex than the other Enigma machines because the Naval Enigma machines use four rotors instead of three.
00:40:56
Jeff Rogers
All right. You with me? yeah So the J becomes the B, then becomes the C, then becomes the E yeah instead of just three. Okay. My brain's hurt.
00:41:07
Jeff Rogers
And the three-rotor Enigma deciphering machine cannot touch the four-rotor machine. So the for the naval purposes, they have an even more complex Enigma machine.
00:41:19
Jeff Rogers
That makes sense. But Turing takes it upon himself to break this enigma as well. And he does. Might as well. Absolutely. I'm bored.
00:41:29
Jeff Rogers
Can you just one Thursday, he's like, I think I'll break the naval one. And he does. ah This is very important because in 1942, the Germans basically wanted to cut off all cargoes full of essential supplies from Britain.
00:41:44
Jeff Rogers
They wanted to starve the Brits out. So the Battle of the Atlantic, every boat that crossed the Atlantic would be attacked by German U-boats. So Britain wasn't getting their supplies.
00:41:56
Jeff Rogers
And this was so serious for Britain that Winston Churchill would later be quoted as saying, the only thing that ever frightened me during the war was the yeah U-boat peril. The U-boat torpedoes were sinking so many British ships that Britain would soon be starving.
00:42:12
Jeff Rogers
But just in the nick of time, Turing and his team succeeded in cracking the even harder yeah U-boat enigmas, revealing positions of all the German U-boats. Gotcha, bitch!
00:42:22
Jeff Rogers
Bitches! That would be our response. Can you imagine? Absolutely not. Okay. By this point, Britain had been involved with the war since 1942, and they were extremely strained.
00:42:36
Jeff Rogers
So Turing traveled to America to kind of lend America a hand in building our own bomb to help the British people in Europe. Eventually, the Germans started creating an even more advanced cipher machine that they would communicate through.
00:42:53
Jeff Rogers
Those bitches just keep getting more advanced and more advanced. But I don't think they... they don't understand how how well Alan Turing is doing. You know what I mean? get the hes But I think the higher up the chain, maybe, like the more advanced it is. You know what I mean? And I say that because um eventually the Germans started creating an even more advanced cipher machine that they would communicate through. These were called Lorenz messages.
00:43:20
Jeff Rogers
These messages were of the highest importance. These were basically Hitler's messages. Okay, so it's like up the chain of command... more you know The more encrypted, right? The Germans called these messages or these message systems swordfish.
00:43:35
Jeff Rogers
It's German. It's a German word. I couldn't say it, so I translated it to swordfish. You didn't even try? I don't even know what it is anymore. So the Germans called this swordfish. The British referred to all these messages just as fish.
00:43:48
Jeff Rogers
So these really highly encrypted messages are fish, right? They're just sending fish to each other. Yep. From that, they called the Enigma machines tuni, short for tuna fish. Oh, that's so but original.
00:44:01
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. Did Alan Turing stop there? He did not. In 1942, Alan Turing developed a complex code breaking technique that he named Turingery. He used this to deduce will settings. Yep.
00:44:12
Jeff Rogers
Turingery. Or maybe it's Turingery, but I think it doesn't matter. I think it's Turingery. He used this to deduce will settings of the newer German machine they called the tuna fish.
00:44:25
Jeff Rogers
The fact that Bletchley Park could read these highly encrypted messages contributed so much to the war effort for the Allies. Turing went on to introduce the Turing team to Tommy Flowers, the inventor of the Colossus computer, the world's first programmable digital electric computer.
00:44:43
Jeff Rogers
It was Turing's idea that led to the design of the Colossus computer. This man's on a roll. By 1942 to 43, Alan Turing was the only weapon Britain had against the Tooney messages.
00:44:58
Jeff Rogers
They would use Turingery to read and know exactly what Hitler and his generals were thinking and doing or even saying to each other at any given point in time. Badass.
00:45:10
Jeff Rogers
Isn't that badass? one dude. Yeah. Yeah. By the end of the war, Alan Turing had contributed three major turning points of the war. The first, the design and application of the bomb that started deciphering.
00:45:26
Jeff Rogers
Second, he unraveled the yeah U-boat enigma. Third, he invented the Turingery that deciphered the really complex enigmas that were used by even Hitler.
00:45:37
Jeff Rogers
Bam, bam, bam. Child's play. He's doing it. Alan Turing was one of the leading reasons why the Allies defeated the Germans. Some historians estimate that Alan Turing shortened the war in Europe by at least two years or possibly even four.
00:45:54
Jeff Rogers
If it wasn't for him, who knows what the state of the world would be like today? i mean, true. Just one example. If Alan Turing and his group hadn't broken the code for the four-rotor Enigma machine and weakened the yeah U-boat's hold of the North Atlantic, the 1944 Allied invasion of Europe and the D-Day landings might not have been able to happen for another year or two.
00:46:18
Jeff Rogers
The course of history would have been altered. Because the German boats, they're torpedoing every ship. Right? So it took the Allies a year to fight from the coast of France to Berlin.
00:46:34
Jeff Rogers
But imagine a delayed invasion into Normandy and what the consequences of that would have been. it would have taken maybe twice as long. And an extra year. like And it's estimated that each year of World War II costs 7 million deaths.
00:46:48
Jeff Rogers
And Turing possibly helped save 7 to 21 million lives. Wow. Isn't that incredible? Just with his brain. Just with his brain. Yeah. It's 1945, Alan Turing was awarded the Order of the British Empire.
00:47:07
Jeff Rogers
In 49, Turing was made Deputy Director of the Computing Lab at the University of Manchester. In 1950, he released a paper called Computing Machinery and Intelligence, in which he devised what is now the imitation game, or the Turing Test.
00:47:24
Jeff Rogers
The Turing Test is a method to determine whether a machine showing behavior can really be called intelligence. As of today, the Turing Test has influenced research on artificial intelligence.
00:47:36
Jeff Rogers
Fuck yeah. He was doing the most. I mean, he's incredible. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And yet, not many people know who Alan Turing was. They're stupid.
00:47:49
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. Our history has this way. Yeah. Of washing shit down the drain, right? That's not. If it's not pretty and packaged perfectly, then they don't want it.
00:47:59
Jeff Rogers
And doing the show, it's so, I mean, it's evident, right? Because you're often like, why the fuck didn't we learn this in school? Why didn't we learn this? In 1952, Alan Turing was arrested for homosexuality.
Turing's Prosecution and Legacy
00:48:13
Jeff Rogers
This was illegal in Britain at the time. A lot of people in Alan's life, they knew he was gay. He was very open about it. One time he was married to a woman, um but it didn't last because he told her that he was gay.
00:48:28
Jeff Rogers
She was basically like, okay, didn't matter. So he's very unashamed of being gay. You get that from everything you read. he it just was a part of him, period. Yeah, and I wonder if... I wonder if that...
00:48:46
Jeff Rogers
um
00:48:51
Jeff Rogers
That expression of it and that like lack of Like, so what? It's illegal. Whatever. I think, like, was that part of his social awkwardness that, like, he just didn't see the point in hiding it? I think Yeah. This is just who I am. Yeah. I totally get that from the stuff that I've read. Yeah.
00:49:09
Jeff Rogers
Just what? But he knew enough to not, like, um to tell everybody because it was illegal. So in 1952, Allen started a relationship with Arnold Murray, who was 19 years old at the time. It's not a good not a good age gap.
00:49:26
Jeff Rogers
um On January 23rd, Allen's house was broken into, and he reports this to the police. He explains to the police that Murray knew who the burglar was.
00:49:37
Jeff Rogers
But during this time, inadvertently, Turing sort of tells the police that the two of them are in a relationship. Both men are arrested and charged with gross indecency. On March 31st, Turing pleads guilty and he's given a choice.
00:49:52
Jeff Rogers
He can either be imprisoned or he can do probation. His probation would be conditional on the agreement to undergo hormonal physical changes designed to reduce libido, known as chemical castration.
00:50:07
Jeff Rogers
They injected a synthetic estrogen into him. His treatment was continued for the course of a year, and this treatment rendered Turing impotent and caused breast tissue to form. His security clearance was revoked, and Turing kept his university job, but everything else went away.
00:50:25
Jeff Rogers
On the 8th of June, 1954, Alan Turing was found dead by his housekeeper. He was 41 years old. The cause of death was cyanide poisoning, and an inquest ruled that the cause of death was suicide.
00:50:40
Jeff Rogers
Beside Alan's body, it was an apple with a bite taken out of it. The apple may have been content the contained the fatal dose of cyanide, but it was never tested. Perishable item.
00:50:50
Jeff Rogers
Perishable item. Exactly. It could have been something more nefarious. Everything I read, they're like... Well, it's a spy game, right? Yeah. I mean, absolutely. He knew the inner government.
00:51:04
Jeff Rogers
He knew the war secrets. He was engaged in top secret work. um But he was gay. He couldn't know all that. But he was arrested and chemically castrated. So... He was a liability. Yeah.
00:51:18
Jeff Rogers
Or he committed suicide. and Yeah. Yeah. Because he Also, there's an urban legend that the Apple logo comes from this because Turing was the father of the modern computer and there was a bite taken out of the Apple.
00:51:32
Jeff Rogers
could see that. Yeah. It's an urban legend. But, I mean, it makes sense. absolutely Yeah. makes it better, right?
Turing's Recognition and Tribute
00:51:42
Jeff Rogers
prime minister at the time gordon brown issued a statement of apology in two thousand and thirteen turing received a royal pardon from queen elizabeth some sixty years later yeah makes it better right Absolutely. As for his legacy, Alan Turing founded the computer. He founded computer science and artificial intelligence. He was one of the great mathematical people of the 21st century and also laid the foundation for mathematical biology.
00:52:10
Jeff Rogers
Being illuminated by the legacy of Alan Turing involves carrying forward his own unbending devotion to changing the world one day, one calculation, and one interaction at a time.
00:52:22
Jeff Rogers
And this is a quote from somebody, Peter Hilton, who worked with Alan Turing at Hut No. 8 at Bletchley Park. He said, It's a rare experience to meet an authentic genius.
00:52:34
Jeff Rogers
Those of us privileged to inhabit the world of scholarship are familiar with the intellectual stimulation furnished by talented colleagues. We can admire their ideas and share they share with us and are usually able to understand their source.
00:52:48
Jeff Rogers
We may even often believe that we ourselves could have created such concepts and originated such thoughts. However, The experience of sharing an intellectual life of a genius is entirely different.
00:53:01
Jeff Rogers
One realizes that one is in the presence of an intelligence, a sensibility of such profundity and originality that one is filled with wonder and excitement. Alan Turing was such a genius.
00:53:13
Jeff Rogers
And those like myself who had the astonishing and unexpected opportunity created by the strange exigencies of the second world war To be able to count touring as colleague and friend will never forget that experience.
00:53:29
Jeff Rogers
Nor can we ever lose its immense benefit to us. And that is the story of Alan Turing. What a man. Like, you know, what were you doing in your 30s?
00:53:42
Jeff Rogers
um Saving the world? yeah Totally. and they Isn't that a great story? That's amazing. Horrible story, but it's, I mean, absolutely fucking worth telling.
00:53:54
Jeff Rogers
I knew that was going to be a hard one to do. Look, if you made it through that, thank you That one is a very detailed story, but I thought it was so... it's so good.
00:54:05
Jeff Rogers
Good. You did a good job of, don't want to say dumbing it down because it was still really smart, but like... There's no way to dumb that down. Now you know how I feel, okay?
00:54:16
Jeff Rogers
Jay turns into an S, which turns into an M, which turns into an oh yeah you just yeah not today not this month not today jesus um that's it oh my god we did a 40 50 i just did way too much talking we did a 54 minute show way to go allan alan alan touring and alan akins my god
00:54:47
Jeff Rogers
You're our overqualified, underpaid master publisher extraordinaire. And that's that is a very, very ah short, sweet way of saying thank you for all of the things that you do for us. Thank you. Because you, Alan Turing, us every day.
00:55:02
Jeff Rogers
he really does. Honestly. Ashley, you are the ultimate and epically unmatched hype queen. And you married that dude. And by virtue of that fact, we married him too. True. Thank you.
00:55:13
Jeff Rogers
but a great... double marriage i'm saying it's great kelsey my god you're incomparable you're our merch and swag creator yep daniel daniel daniel we adore you our friendly neighborhood supporter yeah and you guys please give us five stars however many stars you feel like giving us it doesn't matter but that does something to the algorithm and we we deserve it we're loving this and we're loving you and that's it we'll see you next time bye