Turing Buries Silver Bars for Safety

In the 1940s, Alan Turing, a prominent mathematician and logician, expressed concerns about the potential loss of his savings due to the threat of a German invasion during World War II. To safeguard his financial assets, he purchased two silver bars, which weighed a total of 3,200 ounces (approximately 90 kilograms) and had an initial value of £250. When adjusted for inflation, this amount would equate to around £8,000 in contemporary terms, or approximately £48,000 based on current spot prices for silver. Turing chose to bury these bars in a wooded area near Bletchley Park, the site where he was engaged in critical wartime codebreaking efforts. However, upon his return to retrieve the silver, Turing encountered a significant obstacle: he was unable to decipher the code he had created to indicate the precise location of the buried bars. Compounding this issue was the fact that the area had undergone renovations, further complicating his efforts to locate the hidden silver. As a result, Turing was never able to recover his investment, which highlights the challenges he faced not only in his professional life but also in his personal financial decisions during a tumultuous period in history.