The Imitation Game Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cyanide

Detective Nock and Sergeant Staehl first encounter Alan Turing as he is cleaning up the messy crime scene that was once his house. Alan is crouched on the floor, surrounded by broken glass, delicately sweeping up a pile of white powder with a paintbrush. "Take a step back, and don't breathe heavily," he instructs. "Breathe?" asks Detective Nock, confused. "Undiluted cyanide," Alan explains. "It wouldn't take more than a thimbleful to kill you." He finishes his dangerous work and stands up to face the policemen for the first time, removing the scarf that covers his face. The next words out of his mouth are an insult. When the policemen attempt to question him about the burglary, Alan dismisses them bluntly. "Gentlemen, I don't believe that you could find the chap that did this if he walked up to you and spat in your face," he says. "What I could use right now is not a bobby but a really good cleaning lady. So unless one of you has an apron in your car, I'd suggest you file your reports and leave me alone." Detective Nock knows when he is not welcome. "As you say, Professor Turing. Best of luck with your cyanide," he replies, and leaves. Outside, Detective Nock shares his suspicions with Sergeant Staehl - he believes that Alan is deliberately trying to ensure that they don't investigate because he has something to hide. He vows to dig deeper.

The appearance of cyanide in this scene foreshadows Alan Turing's suicide from cyanide poisoning in 1954 at the age of 41.

Answer: "I tell great jokes."

Alan Turing doesn't make the best first impression during his interview with Commander Denniston. Alan contradicts Denniston when he describes him as a mathematical prodigy, pointing out that Newton and Einstein had made more contributions to their respective fields by the time they were his age. When Denniston remarks, "By God, you're serious," Alan asks if he would prefer he made a joke. "Oh, I don't think you know what those are," replies Denniston sarcastically. He then asks Alan why he wants to work for His Majesty's government, Alan replies, "Oh, I don't, really," prompting Denniston to ask him if he is "a bleeding pacifist". "I'm agnostic about violence," Alan replies. Denniston's patience is running thin, and he asks Alan if he is aware that "600 miles away from London there's this nasty chap called Hitler who wants to engulf Europe in tyranny". Alan doesn't appear interested. "Politics isn't really my area of expertise," he says.

"Do you know how many people I've rejected for this program?" Denniston asks. "Only last week I rejected one of our great nation's top linguists, knows German better than Bertolt Brecht." Alan doesn't even blink an eye as he says, "I don't speak German." That is the last straw for Denniston, who asks Alan how he expects to decrypt German communications if he cannot speak German. "Well," Alan replies, "I'm really quite excellent at crossword puzzles." As far as Denniston is concerned, the interview is over. "This is a joke, obviously," he says in exasperation. "I'm afraid I don't know what those are, Commander Denniston," Alan replies.

Alan then impresses Denniston by deducing that the object of the top secret program at Bletchley is to break the German Enigma code, and points out that they need him more than he needs them. "I like solving problems, Commander," he says, "And Enigma is the most difficult problem in the world." When Denniston comments that "Engima isn't difficult, it's impossible," Alan seems ready for the challenge. "Good!" he says. "Let me try and we'll know for sure, won't we?"

Answer: A crossword puzzle

The Germans use the Enigma machine to encrypt communications for "every single German message, every surprise attack, every bombing run, every imminent U-boat assault". The team at Bletchley Park have an Enigma Machine, but it is useless without knowing the machine's settings, which are changed by the Germans each day at midnight. With 159 million million million posible settings, even if they had ten men checking one setting a minute for 24 hours every day, seven days every week, it would take 20 million years to check every setting. For this reason, Alan believes that "only a machine can defeat another machine", so he is designing a machine that will allow them to decrypt "every message, every day, instantly". When both Hugh Alexander, the head of his team, and Commander Denniston reject his request for the parts required for his machine, Alan decides to go over their heads and writes directly to Winston Churchill, who puts Alan in charge of the team at Hut 8. Alan's first decision is to fire Keith and Charles, for being "mediocre linguists and positively poor codebreakers". The next step, Alan says, is to hire more staff. When Hugh asks how he propose to do that, Alan sticks a piece of paper on the wall. It's a crossword puzzle.

The puzzle is published in the newspaper under an ad that reads: "If you can solve this puzzle in under ten minutes please call STO-6264 for an exciting career opportunity."

Answer: Her parents do not approve.

Joan Clarke shows up late for the evaluation, and is given a hard time for it by an MI6 agent, who mistakes her for an applicant for the secretarial pool rather than a candidate for Hut 8. Alan allows her to sit for the test, which involves the candidates being given six minutes to solve another difficult crossword puzzle. "Is that even possible?" Menzies asks. "No," Alan replies. "It takes me eight. But this isn't about crossword puzzles. It's about how one approaches solving an impossible problem. Do you tackle the whole thing at once, or divide it into smaller..." He is interrupted by Joan raising her hand. "You've finished?" he asks her. It's only been five minutes and thirty-four seconds. "You said to do it in under six," Joan replies. Alan smiles. He has found his code-breaker.

When Joan fails to show up at Bletchley Park on the appointed day, Alan travels to her parents' house to investigate. Joan comes home to find Alan ensconced in her sitting room, babbling on to her parents about radio factories. Joan sits down to a cup of tea with Alan, but with her parents within earshot in the next room, they have to be careful with what they say to each other. She apologises for not being able to accept his job offer, explaining that "such a position would hardly be appropriate". "You belong at Bletchley," Alan urges, unwilling to give up. "I'm sorry," Joan replies, "But for someone in my position to live - to work - in a radio factory, so far from home, with all your men... It would be indecorous." It is clear that these are her parents' views, not hers. "What in the world does that even mean?" Alan says in frustration, before catching a look from Joan. "We have a group of young ladies who tend to all of our clerical tasks," Alan says, changing tack. "Assistants, translators. They live together in town. Would that be a more suitable environment?" That could work, Joan thinks to herself, and signals for Alan to expand on this. "Wonderful ladies," he goes on, "They even organize social events at St Martin's church down the road. Really, the whole thing is really quite... uh...," he pauses, before adding, "decorous."

Answer: Apples

Alan has a lot to make up for, as he has engendered too much ill-will and effectively alienated himself from the other code-breakers in Hut 8 through his dismissive comments and his obsession over his machine - which he has christened "Christopher" - to the exclusion of all other work. Joan helps Alan realise that he will need their help if he is going to break Enigma. The first time Joan meets the rest of the Hut 8 team, Alan notices that she goes out of her way to make Hugh like her. When he asks her why she did this, Joan cheerfully explains. "Because I'm a woman in a man's job and I don't have the luxury of being an arse," she says. "Alan, it doesn't matter how smart you are. Enigma is always smarter. If you really want to solve your puzzle, then you're going to need all the help you can get. And they are not going to help you if they do not like you."

Alan does as he is told, and surprises everyone in Hut 8 when he hands out apples to them, and then tells an awkward joke. The ploy seems to work - Hugh begins to make suggestions to Alan on ways to improve the design of Christopher, and Hugh, Cairncross and Peter eventually put their own jobs on the line in order to save Alan from being fired by Commander Denniston.

The apples are a reference to the real-life circumstances surrounding Alan Turing's death, as his body was found in bed next to a half-eaten apple, and it was speculated that he had laced the apple with the fatal dose of cyanide.

Answer: He proposes to her.

Joan shows up one day at Alan's apartment to tell him that she is leaving Bletchley. "It's my parents," she explains. "I'm twenty-five, I'm unmarried and I'm living alone... And they want me home." Alan tells her that she can't leave - he won't let her - and that he wants her to stay because he likes her, and likes talking to her. "What if you weren't alone?" he asks. "What if you had a husband?" Joan laughs, and asks if he has someone in mind, and Alan says that he does. Joan starts evaluating each of the men in Hut 8 - everyone except Alan - until his meaning dawns on her. "Oh my God," she says. "Did you just propose to me?" Alan says it is the logical thing to do, as he fishes a piece of electrical wire out of his pocket. He fashions it into a ring, gets down on his knee, and says, "Joan Elizabeth Clarke... Will you marry me?"

Alan eventually calls off his engagement with Joan when all the secrets and deceptions build up around him and he becomes fearful for her safety. He tells her the truth - that he is a homosexual - and is surprised when Joan appears unfazed by this. "I had my suspicions. I always did," she tells him. "But we're not like other people. We love each other in our own way, and we can have the life together that we want." She goes on to explain that theirs will not be a conventional marriage. "We'll have each other's company. We'll have each other's minds. That sounds like a better marriage than most. Because I care for you. And you care for me," she says. "I don't," Alan replies, before adding, "Care for you. I never did. I just needed you to break Enigma. I've done that now, so you can go." Alan is only saying this to protect Joan from a dangerous situation, and he gets a slap across the face for his efforts. "I'm not going anywhere," she says firmly. "This is the most important work I will ever do, and no one is going to stop me, least of all you." She starts to turn away, before adding, "You know, they were right - Peter, Hugh, John. You really are a monster."

Answer: Heil Hitler

Christopher is taking too long to work out the settings for the Enigma Machine, and the month given to them by Denniston is almost up. "It's searching... It's just... It doesn't know what it's searching for," Alan says, referring to Christopher. "If we knew what the messages were going to say..." Alan trails off. "If we knew what the messages were going to say, we wouldn't have to decrypt them at all," Cairncross points out. Later, in the pub, Hugh is flirting with Helen, Joan's WREN friend, when she says something that strikes a chord with Alan. The pair are talking about the prudence of office romances, and Helen says that she has developed a crush on her German radio operator counterpart, and says "it's a pity he has a girlfriend". When Alan asks Helen how she knows this, she explains that each of his messages begin with the same five letters, which spell out a girl's name. Something occurs to Alan, who tears out of the pub and sprints back to Hut 8, followed closely by the rest of the team. "What if Christopher doesn't have to search through all of the settings?" he says. "What if he only has to search through ones that produce words we already know will be in the message?" Hugh catches on immediately. "Repeated words! Predictable words." Joan recalls the daily weather reports, which follow the same format each day. "Exactly," Alan says. "They send a weather report every day at 6 a.m., so, that's three words we know will be in every 6 a.m. message: 'weather', obviously, and..." Hugh completes his sentence for him. "Heil bloody Hitler," he says.

The group retrieves that morning's 6 o'clock message and rush over to Hut 11, where Christopher is located, setting the machine to decrypt the last word of that message as "Hitler". Christopher starts doing its work, but barely a minute passes before the many rotors on its side comes to a dead stop, displaying a series of letters. "Oh my God," Hugh says. This has never happened before. The group take down the letters and rush back to Hut 8 to run the most recent intercepted message through the Enigma Machine using the settings obtained from Christopher. They decrypt the entire message, which contains instructions directing a U-boat to a particular set of co-ordinates, ending with "Heil Hitler". "Turns out that's the only German you need to know to break Enigma," Alan says, with an exhausted smile. The group are ecstatic. After two years of work, they have finally broken Enigma.

Answer: A machine from a human being

Back in 1951, Detective Nock keeps his word and tries looking into Alan Turing's mysterious past. He is convinced that Alan is harbouring a secret, and his inability to uncover anything about Alan's military history only fuels the flames. He fears that Alan is a Soviet spy, so he is surprised when all his investigation reveals is that Alan is a homosexual, then a chargeable offense in Britain, and that the burglary at his house was committed by Alan's most recent sexual partner. The detective is convinced that there is more to Alan's story, so he gets him into an interrogation room and starts to question him about his academic writings. "This big paper you wrote. What's it called?" Nock asks. "The Imitation Game," Alan replies, and invites Nock to play. "It's a ... test, of sorts, for determining whether something is a machine, or a human being." Nock will be the judge, with Alan will be the subject. The judge has to ask the subject a series of questions, and then has the duty of determining who - or what - he is talking with. Through the course of the game, Alan tells Nock all about Bletchley Park and how they broke Enigma. He tells him about Project Ultra, and how they had to keep all the intelligence they gathered a secret from their own government. He tells him about how the war dragged on for years, and all that time they performed their "blood-soaked calculus" to determine which steps the Allies could safely take without alerting the Germans to the fact that they had cracked Enigma, effectively deciding who lived and who died. He tells him about how "a half-dozen crossword enthusiasts in a tiny village in the south of England" determined the outcome of the war.

"That's unbelievable," Nock says when Alan is finished. "Now, Detective, you get to judge," Alan says. "So tell me: What am I? Am I a machine? Am I a person? Am I a war hero? Am I a criminal?" Nock has clearly bit off more than he can chew. "I can't judge you," he says softly. "Well then," Alan says. "You're no help to me at all."

Answer: His friend at school

Christopher Morcom was a fellow pupil of Alan's at the Sherborne School for Boys in 1928. The film portrays Christopher as having a profound impact on Alan's life in many ways. He introduced Alan to cryptography, and taught him how to deal with bullies at school, who picked on Alan because he was "different". Crucially, he was also Alan's first love.

One year, Christopher doesn't return to school for the spring session, and Alan is summoned to see the Headmaster. "You and Christopher Morcom are quite close," he asks, to which Alan gives an evasive answer. "Well, your mathematics teacher says the two of you are positively inseparable," the Headmaster continues. "He caught you passing notes the other day." Alan explains that he and Christopher use cryptography to pass the time because the class is too simple. "You and your friend solve maths problems during maths class because the maths class is too dull?" the Headmaster asks. "He's not my friend," Alan replies. "Something's come up, concerning Morcom," the Headmaster says. "Christopher is dead." When Alan doesn't seem to understand how this is possible, the Headmaster goes on to say, "Well, he had bovine tuberculosis, as I'm sure he told you, so this won't come as a shock, but still, all the same, I'm sorry." Alan still doesn't believe it. "You're mistaken," he says. The Headmaster is surprised that Alan was unaware of Christopher's illness, as he had "been sick for a long time". Alan tries his best to maintain his composure, but is clearly shaken by the news. "Like I said," he says to the Headmaster. "I didn't know him well."

Answer: She is glad that Alan wasn't 'normal'.

Joan is upset that she had to learn about Alan's conviction from the newspapers, and is horrified when she learns that he chose "hormonal therapy" (an euphemism for chemical castration) in order to stay out of jail. "Of course I chose that," he says. "I couldn't work in prison." Joan offers to help by speaking to his doctors or lawyers, but Alan won't hear of it. "Alan, you do not have to do this alone," she implores, as he walks over to his study, where he is building what appears to be an improved version of the machine from Bletchley Park. "I'm not alone. I never have been," he says, as he looks longingly at the machine. "Christopher's become so smart. If I don't continue my treatment, they'll take him away from me. You can't let them do that. You can't. You can't let them leave me alone." Alan breaks down, overcome by emotion.

Joan sits him in a chair to calm him down, and Alan notices her wedding ring when she places her hand on his shoulder. "It's a much nicer ring than the one I made you," he says, giving her the chance to distract him with the details of her married life. "You got what you wanted, didn't you?" he says. "Work. A husband. A normal life." Could Alan Turing really be feeling sorry for himself? "No one normal could have done that," Joan says, referring to Alan's accomplishments during the war. "Do you know, this morning I was on a train that went through a city that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for you. I bought a ticket from a man who would likely be dead if it wasn't for you. I read up on my work, a whole field of scientific inquiry that only exists because of you. If you wish you could have been 'normal', I can promise you I do not. The world is an infinitely better place precisely because you weren't." Alan is touched. "Do you really think that?" he asks.

Joan smiles at Alan, and says the same thing he said to her in 1940 when she asked him why he was helping her secure a position at Bletchley despite her parents' objections. It is also the same thing that Christopher Morcom said to Alan in 1928 when he described himself as an "odd duck". She says, "I think that sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine."