Saturday 23 June 2012 would have been Alan Turing's 100th birthday and at Sherborne School we have been commemorating this celebrated Old Shirburnian with some appropriate events.
As part of the curriculum, Sherborne boys have been taking part in various Turing-type cryptography challenges devised by our Mathematics Department; these have proved popular with both boys and staff.
Saturday 23 June will see the official opening of the Osborne Turing Suite; a space which brings mathematical learning into the 21st Century. See below for more...
On Sunday 24 June there will be a commemorative cycle ride from Southampton to Sherborne via Blandford, re-enacting Turing's first journey to school in 1926.
Alan Turing, Westcott House, Sherborne School, 1926
The Osborne Turing Suite: Mathematics in the 21st Century
On 23 June 2012, the Osborne Turing Suite will be formally opened in the heart of the Mathematics Department by a generous benefactor who has made this vision possible. His gift has transformed a classroom in which Turing would have learnt some of his formative mathematics into a 21st century learning environment. With a suite of twelve laptops at its centre, it celebrates Turing’s vital role as a father of modern computing.
At the opening, visitors will be able to see and touch a working German Enigma machine, kindly offered for the occasion by Professor of Cryptography at City University, David Stupples. Turing is justifiably world famous for his extraordinary work in breaking German Enigma ciphers during the Second World War.
Boys have already been using the Suite, not only taking advantage of the computing facilities, but also enjoying the freedom to express their mathematical thoughts simultaneously on perspex boards all the way around the room.
If you would like to know more about Alan Turing's time at Sherborne School, please contact Rachel Hassall, School Archivist. Click here
