Turing went on to make many other important advances in several fields. The well-known Turing Test -- which holds, broadly, that a machine which is indistinguishable from a human in normal conversation can be said to have achieved artificial intelligence -- is his work, as is a well-known hypothesis on pattern formation in biology.

His contributions, however, were cut short by his untimely death. Turing had been persecuted for his homosexuality by the British government, and agreed to undergo chemical castration rather than face jail on a charge of indecency in 1952. He was found dead, the victim of apparently self-inflicted cyanide poisoning, on June 8, 1954.

Former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently issued an official apology to Turing in 2009.

Nevertheless, Turing's memory is the driving force behind a landmark celebration in the scientific and computing communities. While a Turing Award -- "the Nobel Prize in computing," according to Vardi -- has been handed out every year since 1966 by the ACM, this year's presentation, on June 16, will be different (See "").