Turing machine


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Turing machine

n.
A hypothetical computing device capable of storing information and responding to computational questions, used in mathematical studies of computability.

[After Alan Mathison Turingwho conceived such a machine.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Turing machine

n
(Computer Science) a hypothetical universal computing machine able to modify its original instructions by reading, erasing, or writing a new symbol on a moving tape of fixed length that acts as its program. The concept was instrumental in the early development of computer systems
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Tu′ring machine`

(ˈtʊər ɪŋ, ˈtyʊər-)

n.
a hypothetical computing device used in mathematical studies of the computability of numbers and in theories of automata.
[after Alan M. Turing (1912–54), English mathematician, who described such a machine in 1936]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.Turing machine - a hypothetical computer with an infinitely long memory tapeTuring machine - a hypothetical computer with an infinitely long memory tape
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Translations
Turingův stroj
Turingov stroj
References in periodicals archive ?
(25) Subsequently, Lucas (1961) and Penrose (1994) have generalized this suggestion, holding that the combination of Godel's and Turing's result show that the human mind (for instance that of a human mathematician) is not mechanical in the sense that it cannot be modeled by any formal system or Turing machine. Thus, both conclude, the human mind has capacities for grasping mathematical truths that exceed those of any machine or wholly mechanical system.
Alan Turing cracked Nazi codes and became known as the father of computer science, developing the Turing machine and Turing test for thinking machines.
Computational Explanation: Is Everything a Turing Machine, and Does It Matter to the Philosophy of Mind?, GUALTIERO PICCININI
Putnam (1975) originally introduced the Computational Functionalism doctrine (also called Functionalism of the Turing Machine), in which mental states are understood in the same manner as the internal states of a computational program.
A recursive (decidable) language L is a language for which a Turing machine that accepts it and halts on all inputs, exists: If w [member of] L then the Turing machine halts in state [q.sub.accept]; if w [not member of] L then the Turing machine halts in state [q.sub.reject].
has turned out to be computable by Turing machine. (2) All known methods or operations for obtaining new effectively calculable functions from given effectively calculable functions are paralleled by methods for constructing new Turing machines from given Turing machines.
On the technical side, one of the main results of this paper is that under bottom-up semantics, for any Turing machine, one can effectively construct a [Datalog.sup.??, [is less than]z]-program that computes the same function and is safe whenever the machine is total (Theorem 1).
But - probably due to the powers of the same infernal progeny of the original Turing machine - gigantic, static art objects like Oldenburg's Swiss-Army-knife-trireme and Rosenquist's million-dollar Guggenheim commission, The Swimmer in the Econo-mist (both present in Bilbao's hugest ground-floor gallery), are going to look more and more like the sideshow dinosaurs they probably are.
Evidence: An IIM can mimic any Turing machine and any input stream from the environment.
This Turing machine went a long way toward convincing workers in the field that something one might call artificial intelligence could exist.