CASE STUDY: Alan Turing

How many famous people can you name in the field of computing? Most people outside the industry have heard of Bill Gates, and that’s about it. Until recently, when a splendid play outlining his life was produced starring Derek Jacobi, the name of Alan Turing was known to few outside the heady and exciting world that is the mathematical discipline of number theory.

Alan Turing was a young mathematician who was contemplating a particularly knotty problem in number theory while sunbathing in a field in Hertfordshire in the late 1930s. During this sunbathing session, he invented the digital computer. He didn’t call it a digital computer, he called it a “universal machine”, which, because of its very specific context at the time, became known as a “Universal Turing Machine”, and the technology didn’t exist to actually build one of these machines. It would be another decade before the first Turing machine was actually built, and another two decades before they became used commercially. In the 1930s, Turing machines were simply an idea in the minds of mathematicians. Only Turing himself was bold enough to see a future where these machines would be built, and would be run by people called “programmers”, whose role would be more akin to librarians than mathematicians. They would learn a programming language, and build “libraries” of “subroutines” to perform repetitive tasks.

Before Turing had a chance to develop these ideas fully, the Second World War broke out, and his talents were used at the top secret code-breaking centre in Bletchley Park where he succeeded in cracking the code for the Nazi “Enigma” machine, enabling Allied forces to intercept and decrypt incoming transmissions from Germany, which quite possibly won the war for the Allies. Turing was decorated by Churchill, and was truly a national hero.

He was also an avowed atheist, and a homosexual, and totally honest about his views and his lifestyle. As a young teenager, he had fallen in love with a boy at school and formed a deep friendship with him, which lasted until the boy died in his early twenties of tuberculosis. Alan never came to terms with the loss. In a society that was then very hostile to gay men, he never formed a long-term relationship with anyone else, and had a penchant for relatively anonymous sex with working-class men, breaking not only sexual taboos but class ones as well. Considering the attitudes at the time, not to mention the fact that homosexuality was completely illegal, Alan was remarkably honest about his sexuality. He did actually end up marrying a woman at work who, rather unconventionally, proposed to him. He told her he was very flattered, “but I’m homosexual.” “Yes I know,” she replied. “But that doesn’t matter and we’re very good friends, so I think it could work,” she added.

The marriage didn’t last, although they remained friends, and in the early 1950s Alan called the police after being robbed. During the interview, it transpired that he had had sex at his house the previous night with a man who was a known thief, and Alan, rather than the thief, was arrested. He was forced to undergo psychiatric treatment, which included being administered female hormones which caused him to start growing breasts. He then had to undergo a mastectomy. Needless to say, this whole business left him extremely depressed, and he took his own life shortly afterwards. The loss to the computer industry worldwide is immeasurable, as Alan was working on fields such as artificial intelligence, which are only now being re-discovered, and certainly cost Britain her place as the number one country for computing. A very tragic end to a national hero whose name certainly deserves to be better known.

The Natal Chart

Alan Turing’s natal chart shows a powerful Saturn Ascendant trining Uranus on the Midheaven - an obvious signature for the man who invented the computer; however, since the chart is rectified, I suspect the Uranus Midheaven was chosen deliberately, so we need to tread carefully here. Whatever his birth time, Alan Turing had a Sun/Venus/Pluto conjunction indicating someone with deep emotions where “transformation” was a key word. Alan didn’t just transform himself - he transformed the world. The Pluto/Venus conjunction would point the way to his commitment to his ideals, his obsession with the work he loved, and his childhood passion. However, we have to look to his harmonic charts for a deeper analysis.

Fifth harmonic – mental creativity and style

The fifth harmonic chart clearly shows Alan Turing’s powerful creativity. As well as a stellium incorporating the Uranus, Pluto, Sun, Venus and Node, it has a grand trine involving Neptune, Mars and Pluto/Venus, bisected by the Pluto/Venus opposition to Chiron. There’s also a Mercury opposition to Mars. Alan was a shy man and spoke with a stutter so sometimes had difficulty communicating his actions (Mercury opposite Mars). The grand trine reinforces the commitment to his work (Pluto/Venus), and his ability to take action (Mars) to convert his dreams (Neptune) into reality. The Chiron expresses his doubts, the fact that although he was a genius he wasn’t very confident of himself personally.

Seventh harmonic – vision, inspiration and romantic ideals

In contrast to the easy flowing aspects of the fifth harmonic, Alan Turing’s seventh harmonic chart is challenging, with a T-square involving Uranus, Mars/Chiron and Saturn, and a Juno/Mercury/Moon cluster square to Neptune. The latter points to shattered romantic dreams, and the T-square where radical Uranus mediates between hard-working Saturn and the wounded Mars shows the revolutionary, with his unconventional sexuality and religious outlook.

Eleventh harmonic – fantasy and deep-rooted obsession

What a busy chart! Lots of conjunctions and trines – a grand trine involving Sun/Saturn, Mars/Moon and Neptune, Mercury trine Venus/Pluto, Neptune trine Saturn/Sun, Juno opposite Uranus and trine Chiron, and Neptune square Venus/Pluto.

Alan’s deep wound after the death of the only person he ever fell in love with led to him having a series of quick casual sexual encounters (Juno trine Chiron indicates a wounded relationship, and its opposition to Uranus shows the sudden nature). His other obsession was his work, and the grand trine shows an easy flow enabling him to have the perseverance to achieve and succeed.

Thirteenth harmonic – view of death and spirituality

As an atheist, it may be surprising to consider Alan’s view of spirituality. However, the death of his friend in young adulthood meant that Alan had to try to reconcile his atheism with his unshakeable belief that his loved one still existed in some form or other. He did this by reducing time to a mathematical concept – since everything has an extent in time and space, the fact that somebody does not exist “now” does not alter the fact of their existence, in much the same way that the fact I don’t exist two metres above my head does not bother me. I have a finite extent in space and time, and so not existing in the year 2100 is no more dramatic than me not existing in 1950, or in Brazil. A philosophical juggling to try to reconcile atheism with spirituality.

The main feature of Alan Turing’s thirteenth harmonic chart is a T-square involving Neptune, Mercury and Sun/Chiron. Spiritual Neptune is opposite the hard-nosed world of computing and technology (Mercury), with the wounded Sun sitting uncomfortably between the two, not sure which way to run.