Alan Turing's notebook pages used to insulate the roof

The other day , preserved records from Alan Turing's notebook were presented , with which he worked during the decryption of the code of Enigma, the Nazi encryption machine. These records were discovered back in 2013, on the roof of the house where Turing worked during World War II. At the same time, the pages were used for a very simple purpose - insulation of the roof (Turing plugged some of the gaps with them).

Fortunately, many records were preserved, although in 2013 they were immediately frozen in order to be cleaned and restored in the future. In addition to documents from Turing’s notebook, then other papers of a more everyday nature were discovered: an article from a fashion magazine, atlas pages, and a couple more papers. Now experts were able to restore many records, after which they were digitized.


It was in this hut that the documents were discovered.

It is worth noting that other documents related to the decryption when the Enigmas were used by Turing were never found again. Almost all documents, with very few exceptions, were immediately burned (including drafts). Now, the recovered documents shed light on how Turing worked and how the encryption code of the Nazi machine was analyzed.