Build and Run Your Own Turing Machine

In 1936, Alan Turing published a paper in the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society in which he envisioned a machine. He described how it would work, and using this imaginary machine, he was able to mathematically prove many amazing things. For example, he proved that most numbers can never be calculated or even imagined by any machine or human.

The paper that Alan Turing wrote turned out to be one of the great milestones in the history of mathematics, and the imaginary machine that Turing described became known as The Turing Machine forever after that. (For more information, please click on FAQ's at the top of this page.)

There have been many fine working models and computer simulations of Turing Machines built since Alan Turing first came up with the idea. (To see some of them, please click on Related Links at the top of this page.) The Excel File that you can download by clicking on the picture above allows you to build and run a Turing Machine as described by Sir Roger Penrose in his book The Emperor's New Mind (Oxford University Press, 1989).

After having downloaded the Excel File described above, and after having run some of the built-in Turing Machine examples, you may want to construct some Turing Machines of your own. When doing so, you may need to convert between the different numerical notations described by Sir Roger Penrose in his book. The Excel file that you can download by clicking on the picture below allows you to perform these conversions easily and accurately.