November 28, 2007 - 17:28
From: "Douglas S. Blank"
Date: Wed, October 24, 2007 1:29 pm
[This just in. We can talk about the significance of this finding for those interested. -Doug]
The Wolfram Science Group wrote: 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