Talk:Turing Machine

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Revision as of 05:52, 9 August 2010 by imported>Peter Schmitt (→‎Can it write to the tape?: of course)
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 Definition A theoretical computing device, first posited by mathematician Alan Turing, which has been used extensively in analyzing computing problems such as tractability and complexity theory. [d] [e]
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--Warren Schudy 17:56, 1 January 2008 (CST) This page was actually defining Turing Completeness, not Turing Machine. A Turing Machine is a specific computational model. A Turing Complete machine is any machine that can simulate a Turing Machine. Wikipedia's article on Deterministic Turing Machine is pretty good, so I suggest that we import it. I just ended the existing article a bit to avoid confusing readers in the interim.

Related machine and concepts

Was Alan Turing's bicycle his Touring Machine? Is there an Italian Gran Turing version?

Should Turing Test link from here? Howard C. Berkowitz

There was a microcomputer around 1980 that was marketed as a "Grand Turing Machine". Z-80 or some such CPU. Sandy Harris 08:56, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Article name?

Should this be at "Turing Machine" since it is a proper noun? Or "Turing machine" to suit CZ conventions? I just created the latter as a redirect here; that's fine by me, but it seemed worth asking. Both forms have many links. Sandy Harris 08:56, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that it is usually "Turing machine". But I'll check (not immediately). --Peter Schmitt 09:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Can it write to the tape?

I thought the machine was allowed to change the current character, but our current description does not mention that. Am I wrong? Does it matter? Sandy Harris 10:06, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

You are right, of course. The possible actions are writing a character (overwriting the previous one), or moving left, or moving right, or stopping (precisely one of these four options.) --Peter Schmitt 11:52, 9 August 2010 (UTC)