More on Alan Turing
When the Princeton Alumni Weekly did its assessment of the most influential Princeton alumni of all time, Turing placed second behind only James Madison. His high ranking reflects the impact of his life and work, most notably a simple thought experiment that resulted almost inexorably in the development of the computer hardware and software that we all use today.
It was not entirely obvious to Princetonians that this brilliant but shy graduate student would have such a legacy. As Turing himself noted in a letter home to his mother, it was hard to be recognized when Einstein and von Neumann were just down the hall.
For more on Turing, please explore the links to the left.