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Turing machines are extremely basic abstract symbol-manipulating devices which, despite their simplicity, can be adapted to simulate the logic of any Computer that could possibly be constructed. They were described in 1936 by Alan Turing . Though they were intended to be technically feasible, Turing machines were not meant to be a practical computing technology, but a Thought Experiment about the limits of mechanical computation; thus they were not actually constructed. Studying their Abstract Properties yields many insights into Computer Science and Complexity Theory . A Turing machine that is able to simulate any other Turing machine is called a Universal Turing Machine (UTM, or simply a '''universal machine'''). A more mathematically-oriented definition with a similar "universal" nature was introduced by Alonzo Church , whose work on Lambda Calculus intertwined with Turing's in a formal theory of Computation known as the Church-Turing Thesis . The thesis states that Turing machines indeed capture the informal notion of effective method in logic and mathematics, and provide a precise definition of an Algorithm or 'mechanical procedure'. INFORMAL DESCRIPTION For visualizations of Turing machines, see Turing Machine Gallery . The concept of the Turing machine is based on the idea of a person executing a well-defined procedure by changing the contents of an unlimited paper tape, which is divided into squares that can contain one of a finite set of symbols. The person needs to remember one of a finite set of states and the procedure is formulated in very basic steps in the form of "If your state is 42 and the symbol you see is a '0' then replace this with a '1', move one symbol to the right, and assume state 17 as your new state." | ||
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