Editing Alan Turing (section)

===Christopher Morcom===
At Sherborne, Turing formed a significant friendship with fellow pupil Christopher Collan Morcom (13 July 1911 – 13 February 1930),<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://oldshirburnian.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Obituary-for-Christopher-Morcom-The-Shirburnian-March-1930.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://oldshirburnian.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Obituary-for-Christopher-Morcom-The-Shirburnian-March-1930.pdf |archive-date=9 October 2022 |url-status=live|title=''The Shirburnian''}}</ref> who has been described as Turing's first love.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Alyson Almanac: A Treasury of Information for the Gay and Lesbian Community |date=1989 |publisher=Alyson Publications |isbn=978-0-932870-19-3 |page=192 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v-8gAQAAMAAJ |language=en |quote=After his first love, Christopher Morcom, died of tuberculosis ... |access-date=26 August 2024 |archive-date=7 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231107005431/https://books.google.com/books?id=v-8gAQAAMAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Hodges |first1=Andrew |title=Alan Turing: The Enigma |date=1992 |publisher=Vintage |isbn=978-0-09-911641-7 |page=35 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VWvPIWm75XIC |quote=This was first love, which Alan would himself come to regard as the first of many for others of his own sex. |access-date=26 August 2024 |archive-date=8 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230908030210/https://books.google.com/books?id=VWvPIWm75XIC |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Tekhnema: Journal of Philosophy and Technology |date=1995 |publisher=American University of Paris |page=57 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wkvGAAAAIAAJ |quote=... Turing's first platonic love, Christopher Morcom ...}}</ref> Their relationship provided inspiration in Turing's future endeavours, but it was cut short by Morcom's death, in February 1930, from complications of [[bovine tuberculosis]], contracted after drinking infected cow's milk some years previously.<ref name=NYReviewBooks>{{cite web|author=Caryl, Christian|title=Poor Imitation of Alan Turing|url=http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/19/poor-imitation-alan-turing/|newspaper=[[New York Review of Books]]|date=19 December 2014|access-date=9 January 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150107010418/http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/19/poor-imitation-alan-turing/|archive-date=7 January 2015|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Rachel |last=Hassall |url=http://oldshirburnian.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/The-Sherborne-Formula-Vivat-2012-2013-optimised.pdf |title=The Sherborne Formula: The Making of Alan Turing |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140415082353/http://oldshirburnian.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/The-Sherborne-Formula-Vivat-2012-2013-optimised.pdf |archive-date=15 April 2014 |work=Vivat! |date=2012–2013}}</ref><ref name=teuscher>{{Cite book|editor-last=Teuscher |editor-first=Christof|editor-link=Christof Teuscher |title=Alan Turing: Life and Legacy of a Great Thinker |year=2004 |publisher=[[Springer Science+Business Media|Springer-Verlag]] |isbn=978-3-540-20020-8 |oclc=53434737 }}</ref>

The event caused Turing great sorrow. He coped with his grief by working that much harder on the topics of science and mathematics that he had shared with Morcom. In a letter to Morcom's mother, Frances Isobel Morcom (née Swan), Turing wrote:

{{blockquote|I am sure I could not have found anywhere another companion so brilliant and yet so charming and unconceited. I regarded my interest in my work, and in such things as astronomy (to which he introduced me) as something to be shared with him and I think he felt a little the same about me&nbsp;... I know I must put as much energy if not as much interest into my work as if he were alive, because that is what he would like me to do.<ref>{{Harvnb|Hodges|1983|p=61}}</ref>}}

Turing's relationship with Morcom's mother continued long after Morcom's death, with her sending gifts to Turing, and him sending letters, typically on Morcom's birthday.<ref name=":1">{{cite book |title=Alan Turing: The Enigma |publisher=Princeton University Press |author-link=Andrew Hodges |last=Hodges |first=Andrew |page=[https://archive.org/details/alanturingenigma0000hodg/page/87 87] |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-691-15564-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/alanturingenigma0000hodg|url-access=registration }}</ref> A day before the third anniversary of Morcom's death (13 February 1933), he wrote to Mrs. Morcom:

{{blockquote|I expect you will be thinking of Chris when this reaches you. I shall too, and this letter is just to tell you that I shall be thinking of Chris and of you tomorrow. I am sure that he is as happy now as he was when he was here. Your affectionate Alan.<ref>{{cite book |title=Alan Turing: The Enigma |publisher=Princeton University Press |author-link=Andrew Hodges |last=Hodges |first=Andrew |page=[https://archive.org/details/alanturingenigma0000hodg/page/90 90] |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-691-15564-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/alanturingenigma0000hodg|url-access=registration }}</ref>}}

Some have speculated that Morcom's death was the cause of Turing's [[atheism]] and [[materialism]].<ref>{{Cite news |first=Paul |last=Gray |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990624,00.html |title=Alan Turing |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110119181237/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990624,00.html |archive-date=19 January 2011 |work=Time Magazine's Most Important People of the Century |page=2}}</ref> Apparently, at this point in his life he still believed in such concepts as a spirit, independent of the body and surviving death. In a later letter, also written to Morcom's mother, Turing wrote:

{{blockquote|Personally, I believe that spirit is really eternally connected with matter but certainly not by the same kind of body&nbsp;... as regards the actual connection between spirit and body I consider that the body can hold on to a 'spirit', whilst the body is alive and awake the two are firmly connected. When the body is asleep I cannot guess what happens but when the body dies, the 'mechanism' of the body, holding the spirit is gone and the spirit finds a new body sooner or later, perhaps immediately.<ref>{{Harvnb|Hodges|1983|pp=82–83}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://oldshirburnian.org.uk/alan-turing-and-the-nature-of-spirit/|title=Alan Turing and the 'Nature of Spirit'|website=oldshirburnian.org.uk|date=15 August 2020|access-date=26 August 2024|archive-date=20 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171220185715/http://oldshirburnian.org.uk/alan-turing-and-the-nature-of-spirit/|url-status=live}}</ref>}}