Lego Turing machine

Some more wonderments in honor of the Alan Turing centenary: Jeroen van den Bos and Davy Landman from the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica in Amsterdam have created a working Turing machine out of Lego. It is both inspired and an inspiration:

Our LEGO Turing machine uses a tape based on a classic interpretation of computer memory: switches. Additionally, it uses a light sensor to determine the value of a switch: if the switch is on, the sensor will see the black colour of the switch's surface. But if it is turned off, the sensor will see the white colour of the LEGO beam, making it possible to distinguish between the states. Finally, a rotating beam mounted above the tape can flip the switch in both directions.
Alan Turing's original model has an infinite tape, but LEGO had a slight problem supplying infinite bricks. So we chose to fix our tape size to 32 positions.

A Turing Machine built using LEGO In honor of the Alan Turing year 2012

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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bcsizemo

It looks like it would be easy enough to have the “read” head in a fix mount or only have it move when a bit is flipped…

Still it is interesting seeing how “new” technology recreates its ancestor.
s2redux

FTFV: These are all the components needed to describe any operation your computer can execute.

I can’t locate it on my new computer, but somewhere on my previous computer there was a “smoke release” switch that activated when lightning struck. Seems to be missing from this model. Otherwise, great machine!

Looking forward to the Lego Monks website. (Perhaps to be founded by someone named “Larry Brick”?)
liquidstar

Lego Turing machine has made all previous lego models obsolete. All hail the new plastic!
http://www.facebook.com/yehuda.berlinger Yehuda Jonathan Berlinger

Sonny, that thar aint no Turing machine. That thar’s a gen-you-wine nondeterministic figh-nite autah-manaton. And them’s good eatin’!
Roy Trumbull

The concept of computable numbers occurred to two men. One was Alan Turing and the other was Alonzo Church. The result was the Church-Turing Conjecture. Turing was Church’s “student” at Princeton from 1936 to 1938. They approached the same problem using different methods
http://www.princeton.edu/turing/alan/history-of-computing-at-p/
http://twitter.com/slowtiger slowtiger

That sample the music starts with: isn’t that from Raymond Scott? Or some other synth pioneer of that time? I know it, but can’t remember!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mathieu-Le-Corre/687922585 Mathieu Le Corre

Here’s another Lego Turing machine: http://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/article/2012/06/22/l-ordinateur-en-lego-inspire-par-alan-turing_1723058_1650684.html
It runs on compressed air…