A sketch of young Alan Turing watching daisies, by Sara Turing, 1923.
Alan Turing, the cryptographer responsible for breaking the Nazi Enigma code in WWII, was an Olympic-level long-distance runner whose interest in daisies contributed to the field of morphogenesis — the biological process by which organisms take their shape.
Turing's interest in daisies began at an early age when he noticed that the leaf arrangement of the plants was a Fibonacci number. Turing went on to develop a mathematical algorithm that correctly predicts the diffusion of chemical signals that determine the patterns of shape — the science now known as morphogenesis. All of this was done before Watson, Crick et. al. discovered the molecular structure of DNA.
As a runner, Turing was in contention for a spot on the British Olympic team for 1948 before an injury held him to fifth place at the trials. While working at Bletchley Park on the Enigma machine, Turing occasionally ran the 40 miles to London when he was needed for high-level meetings.
Though Turing was persecuted and chemically castrated for being gay, ending his own life by suicide, he is today celebrated as the face on a 50-pound note.
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