This is the greatest thing I have ever seen. If you could mass produce these (or kit them), every computer science department in the world should have at least one as a demonstrator.
and it's funny that at plank length level there is an abstract metaphysical turing machine that simulate the physics on which those turt.. turing machines all the way up
I'm reading Alan Turing: The Enigma. I visualized this from the part about "Computable Numbers" as best I could without much maths background. Thank you for putting this together so I can see how he intended it to work and compare it to my own incomplete visualization. Wonderful for you to take the time to build and share this.
This machine - more exactly Turing's cleverness - has created something new. I love all of him ideas. He was a great person, mathematician and computer scientist.
+József Viktor Kovács He was a man way ahead his time, & suffered for it. But his everlasting contribution will live on, like you said, as a testament to his cleverness.
+Enior Jimenez - Joshua Your English is better than mine :). I'm glad to I could read your words! I hope the Mathematics, the CS, the AI and the other wonderful sciences will save the World! And an ancient idea: Things which equal the same thing also equal one another. // Euclid, Lincoln, etc. // Have a nice day! ;)
@@jozsefviktorkovacs9266 Maybe one day. But before that happens, Humanity would do first what it's best at: use the AI first to enslave itself, then to decimate itself, and maybe after that, it will learn how to use it the RIGHT way :q In the meantime, Turing will be remembered as the father of what has doomed the humanity ;J
Totaly Incredible. Congratulations for your iniciative. This can be used like a great didatical tool in University to explain the concept of Turing's machine. great job. Well done!
I love this for at least 9^(1/2) reasons. The first two are for the wonderful poetic purity with which is expresses the void betwixt the practical and theoretical. 1) There is no practical way to make a Turing machine without using a Turing machine. What better expression of the power of pure mathematics is there? Turnings analogy of the mathematics he produced is one of the best analogies in all thought, yet still, it fall into paradox. Wonderful. Perhaps the fact that our minds can comprehend want cannot be made offers insight to the investigator of the commutative power of humans....2) The practical Turing machine is limited by the supply of ink, the durability of erasers, and the fortitude of tape, amongst other things. It begs the question, is the np: p problem a question of pol initial time, or a question of felt time......? The third reason I love this is that, I am so glad, respectful and impressed that you have taken the time not only to make, but to share with everyone, this practical realisation of theory. Sincerest thanks from me at least. Tertiary solo: 11 010110 101101010 101010. 101010101010110
A day later, in retrospect, please allow me to correct myself. It wasn't a waste of time, as it undoubtedly gave you pleasure to build it. It is an inspiring piece of art, and as such, it provides pleasure to look at. It is also an extremely good educational device. Once again, congratulations.
It's a beautiful thing. Given enough time, this universal machine could do what ever the modern machines can do. This is the theory, it works. It can, given enough time, do whatever computation you want.
Found this a few days after attending lectures on programming a (theoretical) Turing machine. There's a certain beauty to the concept and this design is pretty much perfect. To all the "Does it run Crysis" jokes - yes, it can, since if you can bring a problem down to a finite number of operations, a TM will do it. Eventually. Probably faster if you apply a longer character list and tape. The second should be infinite, just to be safe. And you'd have one frame per month. Maybe..
This is the most amazing thing I've seen so far this year. About the only thing that could possibly make it more cool would be to do it in the Charles Babbage style (i.e. no electronics). Perhaps I shouldn't have said that. Now people are going to lie awake at night thinking about that!
It is fascinating to see how the chips affect each other and how the program can be input into this machine through the SD card. The rotation of the tapes is also a great idea.
This is so cool! I only now stumbled across this beautifully executed machine because of a link on a blog post "The Lambda Calculus for Absolute Dummies" from 2012 mentioned in the rather recent book "The Computer Science Book" by Tom Johnson.
@JolyG, a Turing Machine abstracts from any physical conditions, like memory and computational speed. it simply concentrates on what IS computable, and what is not (and some other things, too).
I did a lesson on Turing machine today; have to admit, Turing was way ahead of his league at the time! It made understanding the concept of Finite States better XD Thank you for the upload, it makes understanding the theory much more interesting.
So many Turing Machine explanations, and in this case beautiful machines, concentrate on the Tape only (which is the memory). So few make clear explanation/simulations of the State Engine (which is the cpu). Here there is "only" a LCD (the numeric digits etc show current state, rather than the state processing). The state engine programming is simply described as "simple text file". I'd like to see the whole program. To all who comment I dont understand - you are sort of only seeing half of a Turing machine. (There is one video of a Turing machine, purely handcranked, purely mechnical, made in wood - search for it!)
The wooden machine, as cool and awesome as it might seem, is not a _universal_ one, though. Its state transition map is just a board with holes for studs, so you have to replace the board with a new one for every new program you want to execute. It also has some drastic limitations on the number of states (just three, from what I remember). It is a good start, but there's much left to improve before it could be used as a _Universal_ Turing Machine. And I fully agree with you on the part about the tape. The tape is just the memory. What's more importan is what's in the head (the program for the state machine). And even more important is how can we express a program for the machine directly on the tape, as part of the input, so that the machine could simulate any other machine. This one in particular is the key to Turing's discovery.
Turing's a hero, for giving up what he did. I thought up a scheme, inspired by your machine, to elaborate and evolve the idea. It's only a conceptualization, but... feed it a Möbius strip, then have the machine run a Quine program. Thinking about it, I ran into the problem of entropy (Asimov's Last Question). Myself and the gallerist of Gaia thought of many, many good sources for more randomness (signal to noise - I'll race ya!). That brings back to mind the Cryptonomicon, from Neal Stephenson.
JolyG, you are right, actually Turing Machine is a model for a finite state machine, it show us the principles for scanner and parser operations, these are foundations to design compilers and modern programming languages. Turing Machine is a general purpose machine, is a logical model
@blingpunjabi It's an implementation of the theoretical machine that turing proposed that defined what a computer might look like. It's the idea that spawned modern computing, but to my knowledge has never actually been built until now.
@JolyG for example, if you can simulate a turing machine in a (programming) language or any given formal language, it is said to be "turing complete". with that knowledge, you can assure, that this language is able to compute every algorithm, that a "universal computer" can compute. for example, functional languages are turing complete, and thus are as powerful as imperative languages (in terms of computation). P and NP refers to the complexity of given problems.
Whilst the machine might seem dismissively basic to people of a certain bent, it must be appreciated in the context of its significance at the time. As a school demonstration unit it would certainly fulfil its purpose quite apart from the beautiful elegance of its design and functioning. I'd its usefulness as a classroom aid with a beautiful CRT unit in a transparent perspex box that I came across in the 50's. It's prime purpose was to show the deflection of a stream of electrons under the influence of a magnet. But it also worked beautifully as an adjunct to listening to classical music and view its wave patterns at the same time. When I left teaching, someone very thoughtfully constructed a similar unit for me because I'd enjoyed it so much.
I would have hated to have you as a teacher. You speak in a way that is basically just over-complicating things to confuse people to give the impression that you are smart. I bet a lot of smart students failed your classes. Just a guess, of course, but I'd be willing to bet on it.
You'd be on stronger ground if you criticized the spelling ("fulfil") and grammar (a word is missing somewhere in "I'd its usefullness"). Bolton's writing is at the collegiate level. Which part is over-complicated?
In the theory you are able to solve any problem using a turing machine that you can solve using a programming language along with a compiler and a computer. This abstraction is useful for theoretical purposes. You don't get getting bogged down in describing a specific computer with a particular cpu, ram etc. when theorizing on what a computer is capable of.
@therealmdavey Of course what you say is true at a high level. However, Turring was trying to make real computers that modeled the interactions of his machines while Von Neumann was building computers with more realistic architectures. It's because of his fixation on the model that Britan fell behind in the technology race. Also wonderful project! Great work!
The problem I have is understanding what is so significant about this machine. Yes I'm sure it can count in binary but that is just a little too trivial. I would like to see some Turing tables for solving some standard problems.
KrazyKuul111: The turing machine is mainly a thought exercise. Basically it's mathematically proven that it is capable of completing any task you can program in a more complicated language, but it is woefully inefficient. Basically, you can prove that a language can do anything if you can prove that it can operate as a turing machine. This is art, rather than form, effectively.
The significance of this machine is that it can compute everything that can possibly be computed - including your brain! The discovery of turing-complete systems was the most important discovery ever made by humans.
This was very nicely done. Although maybe a bit complex using servos and extended logic controllers to accomplish the turing machine project you made, the demonstration was still very nicely done this way and used those extra enhancements of today's technology to make it more accurate, and likewise more exciting to watch. Thanks for this! I enjoyed it.
Brock X you mean sobering something like a...a parallel processor? Maybe if we could somehow virtualize and minimize it down into some kind of integrated circuit?
lily foxboro No no no. I'm not talking about making it any smaller. I like the idea of a parallel processor but keep it the size it is and use 10 million. Would you be able to run crysis if you did that?
This is quite fun as a piece of classic computing/art. Still, I think Turing would try this using only analog electronics. Writing could be done by either writing a dot or not. Reading can be done with an incandescent backlight and a photomultiplier tube (both invented before 1937). The program could be loaded on a different tape (read only) and an output tape can be loaded). Given an initial tape of ones and zeros, one could probably do a full count of the tape.
if you'd like, you can try designing a turing machine that will sort binary numbers at the time of its creation, a turing machine (TM) is meant to be an imaginary machine that will solve mathematical or computable problems. despite having the infinite memory of a TM, the designer of a turing machine may be limited to the symbols he uses. Ex, a person will think TM can only recognize letters by storing 26 distinct symbols. The problem is states have to cater to those 26 symbols.
The design may be oriented by the 26 bounded alphabet. A solution to this is to use only two symbols that can express values with informative distinctions. A can be represented by 1000000 and B as 1000001. This is possible by sending the raw binary value to a subprocess in the mainprocess of the TM. This is one of the many ways a TM can simulate the behaviour of computers. The point of a TM is to create a design that can automate math problems. Computers are turing machines as well.
Utterly delightful! Many thanks. Turing would have loved it. It's just as I've always envisaged. Specially cute was the erasure mechanism. Now for your next project, I won't ask for a perpetual motion machine - that would be silly! But just a time machine... You have? But you've left for next year's vacation? See you sometime! Thanks again.
@MrRedFredSaid He wasn't an inventor, he was a mathematition and the father of Computer Science, his contributions to the war effort were VERY significant (craking German encryption)
I was thinking of doing this for a while. However it is not a turring machine due to the fact that the tape is not infinate. However it is an imatation turring machine and very cool. Nice Job!
+pluton1795 Actually most of the course is theorical . + trying to building a turing machine is useless because a real Turing Machine is impossible to build
+Sahaj Quinci Is it? I've been thinking of ways to make a mostly mechanical Turing machine, but some electricity always comes in. It would be hard-programmed of course, unlike this one, so it would be built as a physical model of a TM diagram. What should be impossible about this?
@therealmdavey I understand both positions, but i think it's more like having a vapor engine which is made to work by vaporizing the water via electric current. It's just a proof of concept, it can be done, but it would amount just to prove you can generate motion from such a piston, it's really nice to see it working though. Cheers.
Congratulations, it's fantastic! Shows you are a master of many disciplines, and you have my admiration. So please don't take it to heart if I also say this: building it was a gargantuan waste of time. But I understand. Some people waste their time by building toy steam locomotives. In fact, I share your fascination with the TM. Some years ago I've written a TM simulator and spent countless hours to write actual programs ("tapes") for it to do stupid things. That was my idea of wasting time.
Actually i used to study the TMs, PDAs, DFAs, NFAs in my Books... But when i saw your implementation i was impressed! I know our cell phones and PCs are much sophisticated but it was like watching Universe growing out of Big Bang! Good Job. Do you have videos for PDAs too!??
That is so cool. It looks so simple and does simple things but without it we most likely would not have basic computers today. That is really awesome. Way to go dude! :) And I too came here after Google Doodle for Alan Turing. Te he.
@dannicron well we talk about the speed in terms of asymptotic bounds... but yea (and the bounds are not always the same as the ones for a real computer, but the're within a polynomial factor)
@JolyG P=NP is exactly the sort of question you talk about in the context of a TM yes. (also P/NP already means finite time) Computable means that for some problem, the answer is computable if and only if there's a Turning Machine that can solve it. ARG this stuff is really hard to explain in 500 characters because to give a good explanation I'd need to define what a 'Language' is in the context of computability theory... and then I'd run out of space
Very Cool! I read that the German Z1 computer used old 35 mm movie film in it's design. Can a Turing Machine be built using Fluidics, or powered by a Tesla Turbine?
In 1970 I used slightly more advanced machine to create and execute control programs for large tool machines. The tape on early machines was made of paper. Later upgraded to mylar tape. These were based on much earlier loom control cards/tape stored programs. I did a payroll system on a computer with 4K (thats 400 thousand) total memory. About what a adverage watch mght have now. With some trainning and lot of creativity you can do a lot with a with a miminal system.
Good stuff! Currently building (yet another one) in software for the Mac, but building an *actual* Turing Machine.. Cool :-) Now we're waiting for the all-mechanical update, of course ;-)
I'm assuming the special symbol for blank is nothing being written, but there appears to be a lack of left endmarker on this machine. Certainly a shiny way to demonstrate this computation technique however
Theory of Computation brought me here. What an amazing sight to behold.
This is the greatest thing I have ever seen. If you could mass produce these (or kit them), every computer science department in the world should have at least one as a demonstrator.
It's funny to think that there's another Turing Machine hidden in the "control box" inside the Propeller chip that controls the mechanical one ;)
and in that turing machine there is another turing machine that controlls the turing machine which controls the turing machine
HAHAHAHAHA
and it's funny that at plank length level there is an abstract metaphysical turing machine that simulate the physics on which those turt.. turing machines all the way up
@@zazugee how do i bookmark comments
It's not a Turing machine. It's a finite state machine.
oh man, the hand writing of your Turing machine is so beautiful
That is one of the coolest things I've ever seen! Thank you.
I'm reading Alan Turing: The Enigma. I visualized this from the part about "Computable Numbers" as best I could without much maths background. Thank you for putting this together so I can see how he intended it to work and compare it to my own incomplete visualization. Wonderful for you to take the time to build and share this.
This machine - more exactly Turing's cleverness - has created something new. I love all of him ideas. He was a great person, mathematician and computer scientist.
+József Viktor Kovács He was a man way ahead his time, & suffered for it. But his everlasting contribution will live on, like you said, as a testament to his cleverness.
+Enior Jimenez - Joshua
Your English is better than mine :). I'm glad to I could read your words!
I hope the Mathematics, the CS, the AI and the other wonderful sciences will save the World!
And an ancient idea:
Things which equal the same thing also equal one another.
// Euclid, Lincoln, etc. //
Have a nice day! ;)
@@jozsefviktorkovacs9266 Maybe one day. But before that happens, Humanity would do first what it's best at: use the AI first to enslave itself, then to decimate itself, and maybe after that, it will learn how to use it the RIGHT way :q In the meantime, Turing will be remembered as the father of what has doomed the humanity ;J
Nikola Tesla was greater!!
Totaly Incredible. Congratulations for your iniciative. This can be used like a great didatical tool in University to explain the concept of Turing's machine. great job. Well done!
I love this for at least 9^(1/2) reasons. The first two are for the wonderful poetic purity with which is expresses the void betwixt the practical and theoretical. 1) There is no practical way to make a Turing machine without using a Turing machine. What better expression of the power of pure mathematics is there? Turnings analogy of the mathematics he produced is one of the best analogies in all thought, yet still, it fall into paradox. Wonderful. Perhaps the fact that our minds can comprehend want cannot be made offers insight to the investigator of the commutative power of humans....2) The practical Turing machine is limited by the supply of ink, the durability of erasers, and the fortitude of tape, amongst other things. It begs the question, is the np: p problem a question of pol initial time, or a question of felt time......? The third reason I love this is that, I am so glad, respectful and impressed that you have taken the time not only to make, but to share with everyone, this practical realisation of theory. Sincerest thanks from me at least. Tertiary solo: 11 010110 101101010 101010. 101010101010110
A day later, in retrospect, please allow me to correct myself. It wasn't a waste of time, as it undoubtedly gave you pleasure to build it. It is an inspiring piece of art, and as such, it provides pleasure to look at. It is also an extremely good educational device. Once again, congratulations.
Absolutely fantastic! I am in absolute awe! I'd love to have one!
Inspiring implementation, really brings low level operations to life, something that people take for granted now days.
That handwriting! It's so... neat!
It's a beautiful thing. Given enough time, this universal machine could do what ever the modern machines can do. This is the theory, it works. It can, given enough time, do whatever computation you want.
Well, not *every* computation. Turing proved that there were some things that can not be computed.
Found this a few days after attending lectures on programming a (theoretical) Turing machine. There's a certain beauty to the concept and this design is pretty much perfect. To all the "Does it run Crysis" jokes - yes, it can, since if you can bring a problem down to a finite number of operations, a TM will do it. Eventually. Probably faster if you apply a longer character list and tape. The second should be infinite, just to be safe. And you'd have one frame per month. Maybe..
This is the most amazing thing I've seen so far this year. About the only thing that could possibly make it more cool would be to do it in the Charles Babbage style (i.e. no electronics).
Perhaps I shouldn't have said that. Now people are going to lie awake at night thinking about that!
Wow! This is one of the awesomest thing I've ever seen. I bet students would love to play with this!
This Turing Machine model deserves to be preserved and celebrated along with the thesis .
I have donated the machine to the Computer History Museum in California. I’m not sure if it is on display, but they do have it.
This is the best thing that anyone has ever made.
i'm not even sure what that is but it's beautiful-it's just a joy to watch it in action
Tickles the brain. Helps us appreciate the marvelous nature of the "computable"
It is fascinating to see how the chips affect each other and how the program can be input into this machine through the SD card. The rotation of the tapes is also a great idea.
I am sure some museum or convener would like to have this impressive implementation as a showcase.
This is so cool! I only now stumbled across this beautifully executed machine because of a link on a blog post "The Lambda Calculus for Absolute Dummies" from 2012 mentioned in the rather recent book "The Computer Science Book" by Tom Johnson.
@JolyG, a Turing Machine abstracts from any physical conditions, like memory and computational speed. it simply concentrates on what IS computable, and what is not (and some other things, too).
I did a lesson on Turing machine today; have to admit, Turing was way ahead of his league at the time! It made understanding the concept of Finite States better XD
Thank you for the upload, it makes understanding the theory much more interesting.
WOwwwww.....
I FALLED IN LOVE WITH YOUR MACHINE!!!!
This brings metal tears to my eyes.
That is absolutely awesome! Takes me back to my "theory of computation" class from many years back :-)
So many Turing Machine explanations, and in this case beautiful machines, concentrate on the Tape only (which is the memory). So few make clear explanation/simulations of the State Engine (which is the cpu). Here there is "only" a LCD (the numeric digits etc show current state, rather than the state processing). The state engine programming is simply described as "simple text file". I'd like to see the whole program. To all who comment I dont understand - you are sort of only seeing half of a Turing machine. (There is one video of a Turing machine, purely handcranked, purely mechnical, made in wood - search for it!)
The wooden machine, as cool and awesome as it might seem, is not a _universal_ one, though. Its state transition map is just a board with holes for studs, so you have to replace the board with a new one for every new program you want to execute. It also has some drastic limitations on the number of states (just three, from what I remember). It is a good start, but there's much left to improve before it could be used as a _Universal_ Turing Machine.
And I fully agree with you on the part about the tape. The tape is just the memory. What's more importan is what's in the head (the program for the state machine). And even more important is how can we express a program for the machine directly on the tape, as part of the input, so that the machine could simulate any other machine. This one in particular is the key to Turing's discovery.
Turing's a hero, for giving up what he did. I thought up a scheme, inspired by your machine, to elaborate and evolve the idea. It's only a conceptualization, but... feed it a Möbius strip, then have the machine run a Quine program. Thinking about it, I ran into the problem of entropy (Asimov's Last Question). Myself and the gallerist of Gaia thought of many, many good sources for more randomness (signal to noise - I'll race ya!). That brings back to mind the Cryptonomicon, from Neal Stephenson.
absolutely incredible which pushed human development to the next level. thanks for the informational video.
You are a hero for building this.
I love the neat "1" you make it write.
JolyG, you are right, actually Turing Machine is a model for a finite state machine, it show us the principles for scanner and parser operations, these are foundations to design compilers and modern programming languages. Turing Machine is a general purpose machine, is a logical model
@blingpunjabi It's an implementation of the theoretical machine that turing proposed that defined what a computer might look like. It's the idea that spawned modern computing, but to my knowledge has never actually been built until now.
Well done Sir! An extremely impressive and informative representation of a Turing Machine.
Absolutely fantastic, great concept, and insanely well done... a really beautiful machine!
Waste
Incredible work! I could watch your little machine spit out numbers all day... truly inspiring project. Fantastic.
@JolyG for example, if you can simulate a turing machine in a (programming) language or any given formal language, it is said to be "turing complete". with that knowledge, you can assure, that this language is able to compute every algorithm, that a "universal computer" can compute. for example, functional languages are turing complete, and thus are as powerful as imperative languages (in terms of computation).
P and NP refers to the complexity of given problems.
Really great idea and build. Excellent use of the Propeller too
Whilst the machine might seem dismissively basic to people of a certain bent, it must be appreciated in the context of its significance at the time. As a school demonstration unit it would certainly fulfil its purpose quite apart from the beautiful elegance of its design and functioning. I'd its usefulness as a classroom aid with a beautiful CRT unit in a transparent perspex box that I came across in the 50's. It's prime purpose was to show the deflection of a stream of electrons under the influence of a magnet. But it also worked beautifully as an adjunct to listening to classical music and view its wave patterns at the same time. When I left teaching, someone very thoughtfully constructed a similar unit for me because I'd enjoyed it so much.
I would have hated to have you as a teacher. You speak in a way that is basically just over-complicating things to confuse people to give the impression that you are smart. I bet a lot of smart students failed your classes.
Just a guess, of course, but I'd be willing to bet on it.
You'd be on stronger ground if you criticized the spelling ("fulfil") and grammar (a word is missing somewhere in "I'd its usefullness"). Bolton's writing is at the collegiate level. Which part is over-complicated?
@@davidklein677 The reading part, I presume ;J
Awesome, maybe someday someone will build one with only 1930s era technology.
true.
Source please? I'd love to see it.
If you go to the web site listed in the description for the video, all the source code for the Propeller chip it there.
Alan Turing?
This is what I was thinking about. my question is how it would read the tape?
In the theory you are able to solve any problem using a turing machine that you can solve using a programming language along with a compiler and a computer.
This abstraction is useful for theoretical purposes. You don't get getting bogged down in describing a specific computer with a particular cpu, ram etc. when theorizing on what a computer is capable of.
@therealmdavey Of course what you say is true at a high level. However, Turring was trying to make real computers that modeled the interactions of his machines while Von Neumann was building computers with more realistic architectures. It's because of his fixation on the model that Britan fell behind in the technology race. Also wonderful project! Great work!
The problem I have is understanding what is so significant about this machine. Yes I'm sure it can count in binary but that is just a little too trivial. I would like to see some Turing tables for solving some standard problems.
hello sir! can i have the research paper or the report of this project? i want to make it as my final year project.
I think UA-cam should give us an opportunity to "re-like" a video after a certain time period. I would have re-liked this about five times by now.
The project is amazing, the presentation (video + narrative) is great too.
Not only an amazing build but a gorgeous video. Thank you.
Man that is so wonderfully crafted ... good work there :)
KrazyKuul111: The turing machine is mainly a thought exercise. Basically it's mathematically proven that it is capable of completing any task you can program in a more complicated language, but it is woefully inefficient. Basically, you can prove that a language can do anything if you can prove that it can operate as a turing machine.
This is art, rather than form, effectively.
That's just really, really great. It's very elegantly designed and presented. I'm jealous!
The significance of this machine is that it can compute everything that can possibly be computed - including your brain! The discovery of turing-complete systems was the most important discovery ever made by humans.
i read the faqs on your website. so this was a hobby? pretty impressive
It's so beautiful I think I'm going to cry
This was very nicely done. Although maybe a bit complex using servos and extended logic controllers to accomplish the turing machine project you made, the demonstration was still very nicely done this way and used those extra enhancements of today's technology to make it more accurate, and likewise more exciting to watch. Thanks for this! I enjoyed it.
But can it play crysis? I'm sorry I had to.
sure, if you're willing to wait 50 years for each frame ;p
lily foxboro What if I got 10 million of those things and managed to get them to work together. Then could I play crysis?
A turing machine can compute anything that is capable of being computed.
Brock X you mean sobering something like a...a parallel processor? Maybe if we could somehow virtualize and minimize it down into some kind of integrated circuit?
lily foxboro No no no. I'm not talking about making it any smaller. I like the idea of a parallel processor but keep it the size it is and use 10 million. Would you be able to run crysis if you did that?
One of the best videos i've seen on youtube
whoa!!! so cool to see where we are rn n where we started
This is quite fun as a piece of classic computing/art. Still, I think Turing would try this using only analog electronics. Writing could be done by either writing a dot or not. Reading can be done with an incandescent backlight and a photomultiplier tube (both invented before 1937). The program could be loaded on a different tape (read only) and an output tape can be loaded). Given an initial tape of ones and zeros, one could probably do a full count of the tape.
if you'd like, you can try designing a turing machine that will sort binary numbers
at the time of its creation, a turing machine (TM) is meant to be an imaginary machine that will solve mathematical or computable problems.
despite having the infinite memory of a TM, the designer of a turing machine may be limited to the symbols he uses. Ex, a person will think TM can only recognize letters by storing 26 distinct symbols. The problem is states have to cater to those 26 symbols.
Absolutely beautiful.
Hey, a Propeller! Beautiful work man!
The design may be oriented by the 26 bounded alphabet. A solution to this is to use only two symbols that can express values with informative distinctions. A can be represented by 1000000 and B as 1000001. This is possible by sending the raw binary value to a subprocess in the mainprocess of the TM. This is one of the many ways a TM can simulate the behaviour of computers. The point of a TM is to create a design that can automate math problems. Computers are turing machines as well.
A replica of this has to go to the British science museum!
Absolutely gorgeous!
this idea made possible all contemporary computing
This made my day.
(
By the way: try the automatic captions. They're predictably hilarious.
)
Hey thanks for uploading the video. Excellent work. Truly a work of art.
Utterly delightful! Many thanks. Turing would have loved it. It's just as I've always envisaged. Specially cute was the erasure mechanism. Now for your next project, I won't ask for a perpetual motion machine - that would be silly! But just a time machine... You have? But you've left for next year's vacation? See you sometime! Thanks again.
@MrRedFredSaid He wasn't an inventor, he was a mathematition and the father of Computer Science, his contributions to the war effort were VERY significant (craking German encryption)
I was thinking of doing this for a while. However it is not a turring machine due to the fact that the tape is not infinate. However it is an imatation turring machine and very cool. Nice Job!
nice style of explanation now my concept about Turing machine is clear 😍
This is more useful than any PC around :)
Some thing like this would motivate my interrest to the university course, i thought it was just a theorical stufff :D good job man.
+pluton1795 Actually most of the course is theorical . + trying to building a turing machine is useless because a real Turing Machine is impossible to build
+Sahaj Quinci
Is it? I've been thinking of ways to make a mostly mechanical Turing machine, but some electricity always comes in. It would be hard-programmed of course, unlike this one, so it would be built as a physical model of a TM diagram. What should be impossible about this?
A REAL Turing Machine has got infinite memory
+Sahaj Quinci I took this course (automata) in 1994 :)
+pluton1795 got it :) i just gave my exam(API) about it
heh, just had a lecture on turning machines today, was nice to see one in a physical form
@therealmdavey I understand both positions, but i think it's more like having a vapor engine which is made to work by vaporizing the water via electric current. It's just a proof of concept, it can be done, but it would amount just to prove you can generate motion from such a piston, it's really nice to see it working though. Cheers.
This is a work of art
@gingerlink the microcontroller keeps track of the position so it doesn't need the Left marker (the TM is not privy to this information... but yeah)
Wow! That´s beautiful! And simple RC servos. I´m inspired.
Congratulations, it's fantastic! Shows you are a master of many disciplines, and you have my admiration. So please don't take it to heart if I also say this: building it was a gargantuan waste of time. But I understand. Some people waste their time by building toy steam locomotives. In fact, I share your fascination with the TM. Some years ago I've written a TM simulator and spent countless hours to write actual programs ("tapes") for it to do stupid things. That was my idea of wasting time.
Simply awesome.
awesome work
So cool, I love taking the theoretical, and making it physical.
Actually i used to study the TMs, PDAs, DFAs, NFAs in my Books... But when i saw your implementation i was impressed! I know our cell phones and PCs are much sophisticated but it was like watching Universe growing out of Big Bang! Good Job.
Do you have videos for PDAs too!??
@mazaltow a linear bounded automaton IS a form of turing machine
This is a beautiful work of art and a great tribute to Alan Turing.
This makes my effort very modest: I don't know if I can leave a link though.
Wow is that a Maxon motor running the eraser roller? One of the best motors available!!
That is so cool. It looks so simple and does simple things but without it we most likely would not have basic computers today. That is really awesome. Way to go dude! :) And I too came here after Google Doodle for Alan Turing. Te he.
This is amazing. Absolutely beautiful.
Computing in its purest form.
@dannicron well we talk about the speed in terms of asymptotic bounds... but yea (and the bounds are not always the same as the ones for a real computer, but the're within a polynomial factor)
It's cool to see how a Turing Machine would actually work.
@JolyG P=NP is exactly the sort of question you talk about in the context of a TM yes. (also P/NP already means finite time)
Computable means that for some problem, the answer is computable if and only if there's a Turning Machine that can solve it.
ARG this stuff is really hard to explain in 500 characters because to give a good explanation I'd need to define what a 'Language' is in the context of computability theory... and then I'd run out of space
Very Cool!
I read that the German Z1 computer used old 35 mm movie film in it's design.
Can a Turing Machine be built using Fluidics, or powered by a Tesla Turbine?
Probably the coolest thing ever
In 1970 I used slightly more advanced machine to create and execute control programs for large tool machines. The tape on early machines was made of paper. Later upgraded to mylar tape. These were based on much earlier loom control cards/tape stored programs. I did a payroll system on a computer with 4K (thats 400 thousand) total memory. About what a adverage watch mght have now. With some trainning and lot of creativity you can do a lot with a with a miminal system.
Good stuff! Currently building (yet another one) in software for the Mac, but building an *actual* Turing Machine.. Cool :-)
Now we're waiting for the all-mechanical update, of course ;-)
I'm assuming the special symbol for blank is nothing being written, but there appears to be a lack of left endmarker on this machine.
Certainly a shiny way to demonstrate this computation technique however