[net.suicide] the Biology of Killer Apples

eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya) (02/17/86)

I heard something to the effect that this was how Alan Turing committed
suicide (note a sub note to net.suicide).  I have yet to look it up, but
what I heard from what was "a reliable source...." was that Turing
refined the poison, coated an apple, and took a bite.  Supposedily
with dramatic flair.  I was thinking of holding a "net.party" in 2000 AD
over AI-List to toast Turing's Philosophy paper which is now known
as the Turing test.  Just an idea to make the 50th anniversry of
it's publication.  I'll have to check up on his cause of death.

From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  {hplabs,ihnp4,dual,hao,decwrl,allegra}!ames!aurora!eugene
  eugene@ames-nas.ARPA
 p.s. my cat's out of his bag.

andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews) (02/18/86)

In article <1401@ames.UUCP> eugene@ames.UUCP writes:
>...what I heard from what was "a reliable source...." was that Turing
>refined the poison, coated an apple, and took a bite.

     This is the theory of Andrew Hodges, the author of Turing's biography,
_Alan Turing:  The Enigma_.  If I remember correctly, Hodges believed
himself to be the first person to put forward this theory.  We know that
there was a half-eaten apple beside Turing's bed, and that he died of
poisoning, but no one bothered to test the apple for poison.

     There is still some question of whether Turing committed suicide, but
finding poison on the apple would seem to confirm this.  The connection
between eating apples and the sexual "sins" for which Turing was vilified is
just too strong to be coincidental.

--Jamie.
...!ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews
"Dr. Parkinson declared 'I'm not surprised to see you here'"