Alan Mathison Turing

Alan Turing's interest in science began early and never wavered. Both at his preparatory schools and later at Sherborne, which he entered in 1926, the contrast between his absorbed interest in science and mathematics, and his indifference to Latin and "English subjects," perplexed and distressed his teachers, bent on giving him a well-balanced education. Many of the characteristics that were strongly marked in his later life can already be clearly seen in remembered incidents of this time: his particular delight in problems, large or small, that enabled him to combine theory with the kind of experiments he could carry out with his own hands, with the help of whatever apparatus was at hand; and his strong preference for working everything out from first principles instead of borrowing from others—a habit which gave freshness and independence to his work, but also undoubtedly slowed him down, and later on made him a difficult author to read.