Logic List Mailing Archive

Alex Smith wins "Wolfram 2,3 Turing Machine Research Prize"

We're excited to announce that the $25,000 Wolfram 2,3 Turing Machine
Research Prize has been won. Alex Smith, a 20-year-old undergraduate in
Birmingham, UK, has given a 40-page proof that Wolfram's 2,3 Turing machine
is indeed universal. This result ends a half-century quest to find the
simplest possible universal Turing machine. It also provides strong further
evidence for Wolfram's Principle of Computational Equivalence.

The official prize ceremony is planned for November at Bletchley Park, UK,
site of Alan Turing's wartime work.

For more information about the prize and the solution, see:
http://www.wolframprize.org

Stephen Wolfram has posted his personal reaction to the prize at:
http://blog.wolfram.com/2007/10/the_prize_is_won_the_simplest.html

-- The Wolfram Science Group
http://www.wolframscience.com