Like many myths, it's bred other myths like that the Apple logo (with the bitten out segment) was derived from this.

In any case, the Science Museum in London has the pathologist's report on Turing's death which we're assured on good authority makes a determination on his death by drinking cyanide, so if anyone lives in or near London, you might like to check it out.

Apparently, there was an apple next to him when he died, but this had more to do with his grim sense of humour at the time, after being hounded about his homosexuality and out of his job and chemically castrated, and the symbolism of the lethal apple in Snow White. Certainly the apple was never tested for poison, and I imagine, if it hadn't been chewed, there would have been no reason to do so.

That was me who changed it back to the "myth". I posted a long write-up on my opinions of Turing's suicide then deleted it as I find it too depressing of a subject to delve into on the auspicious occasion of his 100th birthday.

I see now it's been updated it with a footnote to the Economist article. I had no idea about the pathologist's report. I imagine toxicity levels tell the story.

I still believe that the apple was there as a symbol (he was reenacting a scene from Snow White, one of his favorite movies) but official findings should trump speculation every time.

Thanks for responding quickly.

I think I'd have to point to the pathologist's report (referred to in my link in my last post), which according to the Economist article "proved" that he died by drinking a solution rather than eating an apple.

As for the half chewed apple, it would have nothing to do with hunger, but more to do with making the Snow White statement. The wry suicide note (?).

The notion of lacing an apple with cyanide seems a little fraught. How would he do this, logistically? A straightforward cyanide solution that could contain far more cyanide than an apple, and which could be drunk straight down would act much more quickly than an apple smeared, or injected with cyanide. It just seems a pointless exercise to use an apple, especially as Turing was very knowledgeable about poisons and wouldn't have wanted to prolong his agony. Cyanide is agonizing.

Also, it seems that the apple was never tested, so it would seem that the poison apple theory arose simply because of the presence of a half chewed fruit at his bedside. It's not hard to see how a myth or legend could grow out of this.

My thoughts exactly.

<ARTEM SAMSONKIN
(born Jun-23-1989) Belarus (citizen of Canada)

In 2012, Artiom won the winter ProAm in Guelph and Toronto championship. An IM, Artiom won the 2008 Canadian Junior & was coach for the 2009 Canadian World Youth Chess Championship team. In 2007, he tied for 1st-3rd with Michael Dougherty & Jeff Willms in the top open group of the Kitchener Oktoberfest tournament and tied 1st-4th in the Canadian Closed. He debuts in his first ever Chess Olympiad (2010) on the Canadian 4th board (2 wins & 2 draws in 6 played games) and in 2010, he tied for 1st-2nd with Bindi Cheng in the (open) blitz championship in Canada. The cities of Toronto, Hamilton, Niagara Falls, Kitchener, Guelph & Ottawa are but a few of the weekend tournament titles that he has won in the GTCL, SWOCL & EOCA leagues.>

Here's the problem: the ampersand (&) is NOT shorthand for the word "and". Except for the cases where it appears in the name of a business (AT&T) or magazine title (Chess Life & Review) there is almost never a reason to use an ampersand.

Not serious, not serious. Personally, I wish the ampersand could be abolished, since it makes my professional life more complicated. Our library's catalog simply ignores it when alphabetizing search results, so we get a list like this:

Chess and checkers for all
Chess and the Internet
Chess battles
Chess, bratwurst, and free beer
Chess & checkers for all

Since this is the first time we've processed the list taking into account the new FIDE ID number field, we're going very slowly in debugging-mode and watching the program operate to make sure that it always (or nearly always) does the right thing. Once we're confident that it's doing everything properly we'll let it fly.

Deen Hergott had the FIDE # of Dean Hergesic (http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?...) instead of his correct one.

Sorry to be so late with this comment, but I've only just(!) discovered the Bistro.

A long article about Aleister Crowley's chess involvement, authored by C P Ravilious and running to six densely-printed A4 pages, appeared in the December 1997 issue of "Chess", the well-known UK magazine.

It includes the Shoosmith and Blackburne games, and much of the other material in the piece cited by Phoney B. There's also the following game (exact date not given, but dating from the second half of the 1930s). AC was White against one C Boyce.

1.c4 d5 2.cxd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd8 4.d4 e6 5.e4 Bb4 6.Nf3 Nf6 7.Bd3 Nc6 8. 0-0 0-0 9.Bc2 Qe7 10.e5 Ne8 11.Bxh7+ Kh8 12.Bc2 g6 13.Bh6 Rg8 14.Ne4 f5 15.exf6 Qh7 16.Nfg5 Qd7 17.f7 Rf8 18.Bxf8 Bxf8 19.fxe8(Q) Qxe8 20.Qf3 Nxd4 21. Qh3+ 1-0