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From: heffernan@delni.DEC (John Heffernan LKG1-3/B14 DTN 226-7040)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Alan Turing's Suicide
Message-ID: <390@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: Sat, 11-Jan-86 17:12:02 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.390
Posted: Sat Jan 11 17:12:02 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 13-Jan-86 08:05:26 EST
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Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
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>>Imagine how Gallileo felt, or Spinoza,
>>or Alan Turing, when, at the time they were active, their
>>community failed to appreciate their work, rejected it,
>>rejected them.  I suspect they had bouts of depression.
>>Turing committed suicide.  Here we are thirty years later,
>>and a tiny fraction of society are able to appreciate
>>Turing's work.
 
>I'd always heard that Turing committed suicide because he was
>a homosexual, and couldn't bear living that way (living, as he
>did, at a time and place when it was considered a crime).
  
I beleive Turing committed suicide not *because* he was a homosexual but
because he was forced to take emasculating drugs by the court.
He made the mistake of being open about it ( a no-no at the time) and
was taken to court for gross indecency.

See the book _Alan Turing, The Enigma_, by Andrew Hodges for more information.

John H.