The Universal Turing Machine

1509 Words7 Pages
Our daily lives are filled with technology. We wake up on time thanks to the alarms we set on our phone. We can find the fastest route available to get to where we need to go using the GPS. We can work anywhere and whenever we want, using our portable laptops. Sometimes we don't know how to spell a word, or know the answer to a question, and we are able to search it up on Google and find an answer. Technology makes our lives easier. It would be hard to live in a world without the conveniences we have today. We owe a lot of our modern advancements to Alan Turing, one of the most prominent computer scientists in the early 1900s. Turing created the concept of a Universal Turing machine, what is known as a computer today. Moreover, Turing also…show more content…
Turing started working on it in 1936 before the Second World War, and continued to work on it after the war (IWM). Turing first had the idea of a Turing machine, a machine that is capable of performing a computational task. There are many possible tasks that a Turing Machine can compute, thus there are infinite possibilities of Turing machines (Hodges). Alan Turing conceptualized the Universal Turing machine, which would perform any task one Turing machine would be able to do (Hodges). Think of a Turing machine as a function on a calculator, such as adding or subtracting. The Universal Turing machine is the calculator itself, which comprises many functions. The Universal Turing machine was a single machine that had the potential to do many…show more content…
Turing's invention of the Bombe allowed the British to decipher the Enigma and led to victory for the Allied forces. The Universal Turing machine was arguably the first concept of the modern computer. The Turing Test led to talk and future work by computer scientists in artificial intelligence. Turing had a grand vision for how machines could aid us in the future. By following his legacy, computer scientists continue to build on the foundation that his concepts had laid out. Even when technology progress further, Turing's vision will never be forgotten. His ideas have transcended in new forms. Many science fiction novels, philosophy, and movies can be accredited to Turing's concepts. It is unfortunate that his contributions were not greatly recognized in his own lifetime as it is today. Turing faced many adversities with authorities concerning his sexuality with men, which was shunned mid-1900s in England (Hodges). Sadly, Turing passed away on June 8, 1954, due to cyanide poisoning, which was believed to be suicide (Hodges). Despite the challenges in his life, Turing still fathered many revolutionary ideas in computer science. Turing leaves us behind with his legacy, in promising hope for a greater

More about The Universal Turing Machine

Open Document