A single machine which can be used to compute any computable sequence
1936 (Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society). Alan Turing, a young fellow of King's College Cambridge, introduced the universal computing machine in this paper read to the London Mathematical Society in November 1936, published in its Proceedings.
On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem
More from Alan Turing · AI and science · Before ChatGPT
Who else?
What it refers to: The universal computing machine U, which, given a tape bearing the standard description of any computing machine, computes the same sequence as that machine.
Other voices
- “The brain is not a Turing machine made of meat” Anil Seth, Researcher,
- “The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate any thing” Ada Lovelace, Researcher,
- “Universal intelligence is in no way anthropocentric” Shane Legg and Marcus Hutter,
- “The greatest revolution in analog computing” George Dyson,
- “The machine will not learn by mistakes” Claude Shannon,










