Alan Turing

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What Does Alan Turing Mean?

Alan Turing was an English mathematician and pioneer in the fields of cryptology and computer science. His most famous contribution to the field of computing was the Universal Turing Machine. This was a conceptual computer, which could calculate any algorithm using an infinite tape and a mechanical unit capable of reading, erasing and writing results upon the tape.

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Techopedia Explains Alan Turing

Turing also came up with the Turing Test, which attempted to determine when a machine could be called intelligent. He reasoned that a computer could be considered intelligent if a human interrogator was unable to tell it apart from a human, given its responses during conversation. This continues to be one of the holy grails of artificial intelligence. However, there is still academic debate over the significance of the test.

Turing made many other contributions to computing, logic and cryptology, and would have made many more. However, he committed suicide in 1954.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.