2012 is billed as the "Alan Turing Year," and a lengthy compendium of past and future Alan Turing events can be found at the Centenary site hosted by the United Kingdom's Mathematics Trust. The big gathering taking place right now is the Alan Turing Centenary Conference in Manchester.

Be sure to read Turing's provocative 1950 essay, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," progenitor of the famous Turing Test. "I PROPOSE to consider the question, 'Can machines think?,'" Turing asked. "This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms 'machine' and 'think.'" Turing Test contests have been all the rage ever since. There's even an opera about the test.

If you love museums, the Bletchley Park National Code Centre and the Museum of Manchester host a "Alan Turing and Life's Enigma" exhibit. The Spencer Museum of Art in Kansas has an online offering titled Cryptograph: An Exhibition for Alan Turing. And the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum has a show named "Eminent & enigmatic—10 aspects of Alan Turing."

A docudrama film about Turing, called Codebreaker, tracks his accomplishments and the deep psychological struggles that Turing went through in the last years of his life.

An excellent short biography of Turing is kept by Andrew Hodges, author of Alan Turing: The Enigma. In addition to Hodges' bio, there is David Leavitt's The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer and George Dyson's Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe, which focuses on Turing's intellectual influence. Also see: Cambridge University Press's republication of his mother Sara's biography of her son: Alan M. Turing.

A man never to be forgotten.