Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog » The Simplest Universal Turing Machine Is Proved

October 30, 2007

The Simplest Universal Turing Machine Is Proved

The Prize Is Won; The Simplest Universal Turing Machine Is Proved:

And so as part of commemorating the fifth anniversary of A New Kind of Science on May 14 this year, we announced a $25,000 prize for determining whether or not that Turing machine is in fact universal. I had no idea how long it would take before the prize was won. A month? A year? A decade? A century? Perhaps the question was even formally undecidable (say from the usual axioms of mathematics).

But today I am thrilled to be able to announce that after only five months the prize is won–and we have answer: the Turing machine is in fact universal! Alex Smith–a 20-year-old undergraduate from Birmingham, UK–has produced a 40-page proof.

Vaughan Pratt Standford CS professor, disputes the proofs validity.

by curiouscat Tags: Awards, Math, Students, Technology
Permalink to: The Simplest Universal Turing Machine Is Proved Trackback: http://engineering.curiouscatblog.net/2007/10/30/the-simplest-universal-turing-machine-is-proved/trackback/

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