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"For example, it was claimed that Turing founded computer science.[...] Turing's 1936 paper provided the "theoretical backbone" for all computers to come." So

"For example, it was claimed that Turing founded computer science.[...] Turing's 1936 paper provided the "theoretical backbone" for all computers to come." So your argument is, because it is unclear how to "physically implement the arbitrary-function minimization operator", Turing is the better "theoretical backbone" and has founded computer science?

3pt14159 5y ago
Not OP, but I agree with them. The word computer means multiple things. In one sense it the abstraction of universal computation. Imagine a world where actual physical computers didn't progress to universal computation, but were stuck being purpose built to the present day. The field of computer science would be utterly different because they couldn't actually compute anything with their science. They could just discuss computability in an abstract sense. It'd be like physics without the particle colliders or telescopes or lasers. I think of the founders of computer science more like the founding fathers of America, rather than a single guy named Turing, but some are more memorable than others.
- KingOfCoders 5y ago
  The article writes about your point of general computation and purpose built computers: "Likewise, Konrad Zuse never got a Turing award despite having created the world's first working programmable general computer 1935-41. [...] It was pointed out that none of the computers built during the 1940s were influenced in any way by Turing's 1936 theoretical paper, [...]"
- mr_toad 5y ago
  > Imagine a world where actual physical computers didn't progress to universal computation, but were stuck being purpose built It’s not clear that you need a theory of computation to build a stored process computer. You might not clearly understand the theoretical capability of such a machine , but that wouldn’t prevent you from doing many useful things with it.
bo1024 5y ago
I don't think it's important to quibble over who's overrated or underrated among these giants of math and CS who already get tons of recognition (I'm glad Schmidhuber brings many other historical names into the narrative). However, yes, I do think that 'mechanization' or physical implementation is a crucial piece of Turing's contribution that is wrongly ignored in this article. And I think without mechanization, there is no CS as we understand it.
- KingOfCoders 5y ago
  I can only repeat my comment from down: "Likewise, Konrad Zuse never got a Turing award despite having created the world's first working programmable general computer 1935-41. [...] It was pointed out that none of the computers built during the 1940s were influenced in any way by Turing's 1936 theoretical paper, [...]"
  - obastani 5y ago
    As far as I know, Konrad Zuse didn't prove that this strategy was a universal model of computation. In contrast, Turing proved that his universal machine could emulate any other machine, given the right program. In my view, Turing's contribution is providing a plausible definition of computation along with a deep and comprehensive theoretical characterization of the properties of this model of computation. This is why Turing machines form the basis of theoretical computer science, and not other models such as lambda calculus. I think saying that Turing machines were adopted since they were merely more convenient is highly misleading. I think this pattern repeats a lot: There are many cases where you can point to multiple people who invented similar ideas around the same time, but it is typically the person who provided the most deep and comprehensive treatment of the subject that ultimately gets most of the credit. This depth is not conveyed in pop science attributions such as "Turing invented computation", but this doesn't mean Turing doesn't deserve the credit.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    I don't believe anyone has received a Turing award for creating a working computer.
w-j-w 5y ago
I think that proving computers could exist in physical reality satisfies this claim very well
jimhefferon 5y ago
The question in the air in 36-ish was something like, "OK, clearly we can mechanically compute things like the sum of two numbers or the prime factorization of a number. But are there other things that can be computed with a discrete and deterministic mechanism?" (At the time they called these "effective" functions.) Church had piles of stuff that he and his students produced that were computable with the lambda calculus. Basically, all of the natural number functions that a person thinks are intuitively mechanically computable, those folks had showed how to lambda compute. With this evidence, he proposed to Godel (they were working together at Princeton at the time), who was considered the world's expert, taking "lambda-calculable" as a mathematically precise version of "mechanically computable." But Godel was notoriously careful, and he did not accept the thought as perfectly clear. That is, they had a subset of the things that could be mechanically computed. But was it the entire set? Or was there something that some discrete and deterministic mechanism could be made to do that would lead to more than Church's set? Imagine you are Dedekind and you are looking at the primitive recursive functions and (1) any such function is intuitively mechanically computable, and (2) you are able to work out how to define a pile of things like prime factorization of an integer using this system. You might well conjucture that this is it. But we know (and Godel and Church and Turing knew) that this is not it, that you need to add unbounded search of some kind (this is what minimization does) to get more things that are intuitively mechanically computable. I agree that the minimization operator is not as easy to picture with gears and levers as some of the other operations. But the issue in 36 was that a person could worry that there was even more. Just as minimization is not as easy to picture and the need for it didn't hit Dedekind with great force, could there be something else out there that we have all missed? That worry disappeared when Godel read Turing's masterful analysis. It convinced him that this is what a machine can do. He wrote, "That this really is the correct definition of mechanical computability was established beyond any doubt by Turing.'' Church felt the same way, writing that Turing machines have "the advantage of making the identification with effectiveness ... evident immediately.''
- cfcf14 5y ago
  Wonderful explanation, thank you.
- 5y ago

3pt14159 5y ago

Not OP, but I agree with them. The word computer means multiple things. In one sense it the abstraction of universal computation. Imagine a world where actual physical computers didn't progress to universal computation, but were stuck being purpose built to the present day. The field of computer science would be utterly different because they couldn't actually compute anything with their science. They could just discuss computability in an abstract sense. It'd be like physics without the particle colliders or telescopes or lasers. I think of the founders of computer science more like the founding fathers of America, rather than a single guy named Turing, but some are more memorable than others.

KingOfCoders 5y ago
The article writes about your point of general computation and purpose built computers: "Likewise, Konrad Zuse never got a Turing award despite having created the world's first working programmable general computer 1935-41. [...] It was pointed out that none of the computers built during the 1940s were influenced in any way by Turing's 1936 theoretical paper, [...]"
mr_toad 5y ago
> Imagine a world where actual physical computers didn't progress to universal computation, but were stuck being purpose built It’s not clear that you need a theory of computation to build a stored process computer. You might not clearly understand the theoretical capability of such a machine , but that wouldn’t prevent you from doing many useful things with it.

bo1024 5y ago

I don't think it's important to quibble over who's overrated or underrated among these giants of math and CS who already get tons of recognition (I'm glad Schmidhuber brings many other historical names into the narrative). However, yes, I do think that 'mechanization' or physical implementation is a crucial piece of Turing's contribution that is wrongly ignored in this article. And I think without mechanization, there is no CS as we understand it.

KingOfCoders 5y ago
I can only repeat my comment from down: "Likewise, Konrad Zuse never got a Turing award despite having created the world's first working programmable general computer 1935-41. [...] It was pointed out that none of the computers built during the 1940s were influenced in any way by Turing's 1936 theoretical paper, [...]"
- obastani 5y ago
  As far as I know, Konrad Zuse didn't prove that this strategy was a universal model of computation. In contrast, Turing proved that his universal machine could emulate any other machine, given the right program. In my view, Turing's contribution is providing a plausible definition of computation along with a deep and comprehensive theoretical characterization of the properties of this model of computation. This is why Turing machines form the basis of theoretical computer science, and not other models such as lambda calculus. I think saying that Turing machines were adopted since they were merely more convenient is highly misleading. I think this pattern repeats a lot: There are many cases where you can point to multiple people who invented similar ideas around the same time, but it is typically the person who provided the most deep and comprehensive treatment of the subject that ultimately gets most of the credit. This depth is not conveyed in pop science attributions such as "Turing invented computation", but this doesn't mean Turing doesn't deserve the credit.
- mcguire 5y ago
  I don't believe anyone has received a Turing award for creating a working computer.

w-j-w 5y ago

I think that proving computers could exist in physical reality satisfies this claim very well

jimhefferon 5y ago

The question in the air in 36-ish was something like, "OK, clearly we can mechanically compute things like the sum of two numbers or the prime factorization of a number. But are there other things that can be computed with a discrete and deterministic mechanism?" (At the time they called these "effective" functions.) Church had piles of stuff that he and his students produced that were computable with the lambda calculus. Basically, all of the natural number functions that a person thinks are intuitively mechanically computable, those folks had showed how to lambda compute. With this evidence, he proposed to Godel (they were working together at Princeton at the time), who was considered the world's expert, taking "lambda-calculable" as a mathematically precise version of "mechanically computable." But Godel was notoriously careful, and he did not accept the thought as perfectly clear. That is, they had a subset of the things that could be mechanically computed. But was it the entire set? Or was there something that some discrete and deterministic mechanism could be made to do that would lead to more than Church's set? Imagine you are Dedekind and you are looking at the primitive recursive functions and (1) any such function is intuitively mechanically computable, and (2) you are able to work out how to define a pile of things like prime factorization of an integer using this system. You might well conjucture that this is it. But we know (and Godel and Church and Turing knew) that this is not it, that you need to add unbounded search of some kind (this is what minimization does) to get more things that are intuitively mechanically computable. I agree that the minimization operator is not as easy to picture with gears and levers as some of the other operations. But the issue in 36 was that a person could worry that there was even more. Just as minimization is not as easy to picture and the need for it didn't hit Dedekind with great force, could there be something else out there that we have all missed? That worry disappeared when Godel read Turing's masterful analysis. It convinced him that this is what a machine can do. He wrote, "That this really is the correct definition of mechanical computability was established beyond any doubt by Turing.'' Church felt the same way, writing that Turing machines have "the advantage of making the identification with effectiveness ... evident immediately.''

cfcf14 5y ago
Wonderful explanation, thank you.
5y ago