Computers are a Science: The Turing Award

This article is the third in an ongoing series by Gwen Barret and Destiny Johnson.

The Nobel Prize of Computer Science

There are Nobel Prizes in math and science, but there is not one specifically dedicated to computer science. However, there is the Turing Award which has been awarded to almost 55 people.

Alan Turing – A Short Biography

In short, Alan Turing was a profound mathematician and code-breaker from England. Recognized for his life-saving work helping to break Nazi codes during World War II (WWII) and his expertise in artifical intelligience, he is known as the father of computer science.

The Turing Award, sometimes referred to as the “Nobel Prize of Computing,” was named in 1966 and was first given to Alan J. Perlis.

Maurice V. Wilkes

The second Turing Award was given to Maurice Wilkes in 1967. Wilkes was known as the most accomplished builder and designer of the EDSAC or the electronic delay storage automatic calculator. This computing device was the first computer capable of internal storage. In addition, he also authored a chapter of the “Preparation of Programs for Electronic Digital Computers,” with Gill and Wheeler.

John Cocke

One of the winners of the Turing Award in the year of 1987 was John Cocke. This man was known for his benefaction to the design and theory of compilers, which is the architecture of large systems and also the development of reduced instruction computers A.K.A (RISC).

Cocke was also given the award for his systemizing and discovery of some of the transformations that are now used in optimizing compilers including the reduction of operator strength and dead code elimination.

Andrew Chi-Chih Yao

Another winner of the Turing Award was Andrew Chi-Chih Yao. He was known for his contributions to the theory of computation, including cryptology and communication complexity. This theory helps scientists understand how machines respond to functions and solve problems.

Yao was born December 24, 1946 and is currently about 74 years of age.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee

It is not a surprise that Tim Berners-Lee won a Turing award during 2016. After all, he invented the World Wide Web or the first web browser using coding platforms like HTML. He also developed the fundamental protocols and algorithms required to allow the Web to scale.

Berners-Lee continues to live in honor of his accomplishments.

Honor Award Winners

These awards honor Alan Turing’s accomplishments in the field of computer science. It is because of these computer scientists that we have access to the benefits of technological innovation.

You could be next on the list of the Turing Award Winners.

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