This weekend saw the play Breaking the Code

I saw the play Breaking The Code which is about Alan Turing. It was well performed at the Bus Barn Stage in Los Altos. This is a small theater group which I had not previously attended. The performance was good, with well done sets and very fine acting. One downside is that the performance deserved a larger audience.

Since Turing and the basic information about his life and death are well known it is hard to say if someone not already familiar with the basics would follow the play easily. The play runs at Bus Barn Theater until May 2 and I recommend it.

Seeing the play is yet another reminder of the stupidity surrounding the arrest and prosecution of Alan Turing. In addition to his brilliant work in mathematics and computation Turing was turning his talents to biology. We will never know the extent to which Turing could have contributed to science if he had been allowed to live his live without persecution. It is very likely that he could have contributed to biological knowledge and thus aided in reducing human illness and suffering.