Tuesday, April 20, 2010
A Turing Machine
Here's an interesting site, provided by someone who attempted to build a Turing Machine. Wikipedia describes a Turing Machine as a theoretical device that manipulates symbols contained on a strip of tape, described by Alan Turing in 1937. So, what do you think, as we all anxiously await the Supreme Court's Bilski decision -- should a Turing Machine be patentable subject matter?
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Dear All-wise and All-powerful Patent Partner,
The other day I was studying two for-sale ads on eBay.
One was for a general purpose computer that was advertised as being able to emulate a Turing machine.
The other was for an actual Turing machine.
I was debating with myself as which one I should buy. I was thinking, why buy the slower machine that merely "emulates" Turing's Machine when instead I could purchase the genuine article?
The sales price seemed reasonable.
But then I started to worry about costs of operation. This Turing Machine won't be very "useful" to me if my electric bills exceed my ability to pay them.
But at that point the computations became too complicated for my simple, businessman's brain. Maybe you can help me out?
So let's say the Turing tape is made of an ultra thin, super strong and never wearing out material having a width of 1/4 inch and a mass of just one nanogram per square meter. What would my electric bill be if I needed to run a computing operation that must advance the tape from one end to the other in less than half of a human lifetime?
Thank you in advance for your help all wise patent practitioner. This business man only knows how practice business methods. Computations that involve physics are just too much for me.
Sincerely yours,
Turing Machine collector
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