Alan Turing — "It is possible to invent a single machine which can be used to compute any compu…"
It is possible to invent a single machine which can be used to compute any computable sequence.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Alan Turing
"The idea of a 'soul' is a philosophical concept, not a scientific one."
"We are trying to make a brain."
"The extent to which we regard mind as an attribute of the body, or something separable from it, is largely a matter of convenience."
"The machine should be able to learn from experience."
"Instead of trying to produce a programme to simulate the adult mind, why not rather try to produce one which simulates the child's?"
Details
From his paper 'On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem'.
Date: 1936
PhilosophicalVerification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: gemini
1 source checked
Understanding this quote
What it means
Any calculation that can be defined by a finite set of rules can be performed by one universal machine — you don't need a separate device for each task. This single insight underpins every general-purpose computer ever built: one machine, infinite problems, all solvable through the right instructions.
Relevance to Alan Turing
Turing published this in his landmark 1936 paper introducing the theoretical 'Turing machine.' A mathematician who broke the Enigma cipher at Bletchley Park, he spent his life proving that intelligence and computation are formalizable. This quote captures his core conviction: thinking itself might be mechanized, a belief that defined his entire career.
The era
In the 1930s, 'computers' were human clerks doing arithmetic by hand. No electronic computers existed. Turing wrote this during a foundational crisis in mathematics triggered by Gödel and Hilbert. His theoretical machine resolved key questions about what is provably computable, arriving just before WWII would demand exactly the mechanical codebreaking he had already imagined.
AI-generated insights based on extensive research and information for context. Factual errors? Email [email protected].