What Is a Computer? Simplified Explanation of Turing Machines 🖥️

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A Turing Machine is a device invented by Alan Turing in 1936 that defines the very essence of what a "computer" is. Now, if you search "What is the definition of a computer?" on the internet, most answers will reference electronics or various data storage/processing qualities. But in computer science, we use the Turing Machine, which is a genius (but seemingly-strange) theoretical device. What’s weird about Turing machines is that at first glance, they seem entirely unrelated to our usual concept of a computer. They’re extremely rudimentary, consisting of only three basic components and governed by a simple set of rules. And yet, amazingly, Turing machines can actually carry out any algorithm that a modern computer can! The invention of the Turing Machine eventually settled a decades-long debate to define what computation is, and they gave us an entirely new way of understanding not just machines, but even the theoretical limits of our own brains.
In this video, we break down how a Turing machine works, use it to solve a couple of real algorithmic problems, and finally answer the question of why the simple device became (and still remains) the foundation of computer science.

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Turing’s paper: https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Turing_Paper_1936.pdf

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