Alan Mathison Turing was born in England in 1912. Like many talents who go on to great things, Turing showed his incredible intelligence from a very young age. In fact, by the time he was halfway through primary school, Turing’s teachers had already realized he was a mathematical genius. He could do complex calculating in his head even though he had never been taught about it.

Fortunately, Turing was the opposite of Hawking, and he absolutely loved school. Proof of this is the extreme lengths he would go just to get to class. For example, on one occasion when there was a train strike, Turing even cycled 60 miles to attend. Now that’s devotion!

However, in spite of Turing’s scholarly attitude and his obvious genius, his teachers had their concerns about his future. This is because well-known schools in Britain like the ones Turing attended regarded the Classics, such as Latin and Greek as the most important, not subjects like maths and science. Turing’s proud teachers even wrote letters to his parents asking them to convince the young man to focus more on the Classics. Imagine how different the world might be if the young Turing had listened to his teachers! Thankfully, his love for all things scientific and mathematical meant there was no chance of that.

After finishing secondary school, Turing completed a degree in mathematics at King’s College Cambridge, and then obtained his PhD from Princeton University in the USA. It was during these university years that he invented the Turing Machine, which is considered by many people to be the earliest version of a computer processing unit. It sounds unbelievable that anybody could have invented something which was similar to a computer in 1936. But that just shows how far ahead of his time Alan Turing was, even when he was still a young man.

How does your family celebrate Mother’s Day? Do you give her flowers or make her a card? The original mother’s days were observed rather differently.

Julia Ward Howe was the first person to propose that the United States observe a national mother’s day. She joined the U.S. Sanitary Commission during the American Civil War. Following the war, Howe became a supporter for peace. In 1872, Howe organized Mother’s Peace Day to improve working conditions in mines and provide better education for poor children.

But Mothers’ Peace Day never became a national holiday. Mother’s Day owes its origin to the efforts of Anna Jarvis, a daughter who wanted to honor her mother, Ann.

In 1858, Ann began a tradition of Mothers’ Work Days in Taylor County, the rural community where infection and disease were common. Ann begged doctors to teach her and her neighbors how to improve the family health. On Mothers’ Work Days, they helped and taught other mothers.

Ann once concluded: “I hope that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother’s day.” When Ann died on May 9, 1905, Anna determined to fulfill her mother’s wish.

Anna wrote hundreds of letters to politicians and spoke often to promote the establishment of Mother’s Day. On May 10, 1908, Anna addressed a large Mother’s Day celebration. She urged children to show love and thanks for their mothers “by words, gifts, acts of affection...”

The idea of a day honoring mothers spread quickly throughout the country and became official in 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson signed a resolution establishing the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.

While few today think of Mother’s Day as a day to do charity work in the community, you can still follow Anna to celebrate it.

Four “amateur (业余的) astronauts” are about to launch into orbit in another landmark mission for space tourism. It’s the latest flight to help open up access to space for paying customers. The trip has been paid for by US billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman, who will travel with three crewmates. A healthcare worker, a science educator and a data analyst will circle the Earth with Mr Isaacman for three days. They hope to inspire others with their adventure and to raise money for children’s cancer medicine. Accordingly, the mission has been named Inspiration 4.

The crew’s Dragon vehicle, made by Elon Musk’s company Space X, will ride a Falcon-9 rocket. It is due to launch from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center at 20:02 EDT on Wednesday, or very shortly after. The spacecraft will reach an altitude of 575km, which is about 150km higher than the International Space Station (ISS). The four will then spend their time doing experiments and looking at Earth through a large domed window which offers panoramic views of the whole planet.

The mission follows hot on the heels of Sir Richard Branson’s flight aboard his Virgin Galactic rocket plane on 11 July, and fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos’ trip to space nine days later in the New Shepard vehicle. The glass dome has been fitted in place of the mechanism that Dragon normally uses to dock with the ISS, which isn’t needed on this flight.

In the 60 years since Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin first went into space, fewer than 600 people have followed in his footsteps; and most of those have been military-trained personnel flying on government-sponsored missions. Inspiration 4 is different. It’ll be a fully commercially purchased and operated orbital flight. NASA helped fund the development of a lot of the technology used by Elon Musk’s company, and did so to try to diversify the economy in low-Earth orbit.