• PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPM
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    1 month ago

    Poor storage of laboratory chemicals is the alternative explanation. While plausible, suicide seems more likely to my eyes.

    • gedhrel@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      The story is at least semi-plausible, but Turing also still had friends in the right places (not enough to dig him out of the hole he got himself into with the local plod*) and there was a strong social taboo around suicide.

      (* At the time there was good reason to believe that the end of the outlawing of homosexuality was just around the corner, so offering a genuine explanation was not necessarily Turing acting as such a naif as is often portrayed.)