Comment by LeoPanthera 18 hours ago
The very Wikipedia page you link explains in great detail why, although we can never know for sure, it's actually unlikely that he committed suicide, and more likely that his death was an accident.
The suicide story will probably never go away, because it's too good a story. It fits so neatly into popular culture.
Even if he didn't kill himself and even if it was an accident, he still was very much fucked over by the British government. They stripped his security clearance and made him a felon and made him take female hormones. This guy cracked the uncrackable code and basically (co)invented Computer Science, but all they cared about who he had sex with.
From the wikipedia article: > Turing may have inhaled cyanide fumes from an electroplating experiment in his spare room
How would he have put himself quietly to bed if he had gotten a fatal dose of cyanide in the spare room where the electroplating was taking place? Wouldn't there be very fast respiratory distress?
A highly acute dose could kill in seconds, but a lower dose can cause confusion, headaches, dizziness and more prior to inducing a coma and death.
It is not outside the realm of possibility that he became confused and in pain, decided to lie down to sleep it off, then died in his sleep. My own father in law suffered a significant blow to the head and, despite knowing all the signs of a concussion and what to do about them, got up and slept it off- the very last thing one should do. He was simply too confused to do anything else.
His story had a happier ending than Alan's, but it goes to show that the accidental death theory isn't implausible.
> While it is common advice that someone who is concussed should not be allowed to fall asleep in case they go into a coma, for general cases this is not supported by current evidence.
I don't know about the coma bit, but there's a comedian whose early career was largely defined by having slept off a concussion and waking up with a stutter.
It may or may not lead to a coma, but I surely wouldn't let someone sleep one off immediately following the injury if I can help it.
I recommend reading his nephew's biography, Prof. He makes a strong case for why it was probably suicide.
The government chemically castrated him. Is that not bad enough?