"People who get degrees in computer science like to think of computers as “Turing machines.” I suspect this is because it is easier to prove theorems about Turi

"People who get degrees in computer science like to think of computers as “Turing machines.” I suspect this is because it is easier to prove theorems about Turing machines than Von Neumann machines. That’s fine by me, though I will note in passing that I have never read a proof (or anything like a proof) that VN machines like you write code on are computationally equivalent to Turing machines. Someone smart please point me to the proof if it exists." This trivial proof is usually left as an exercise sometime in the first couple weeks of an undergrad theory of computation course. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness This quote rhetorically implies that the author is deeply versed in computer theory, and has made a penetrating breakthrough that undercuts its entire edifice. In reality, he's "not aware" of such a proof because he is aware of very close to zero proofs in computer theory. It makes me reticent to bother engaging with the remainder of the article, which contains assertions in fields I'm less capable of evaluating skeptically.