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In computability theory, a system of data-manipulation rules (such as a model of computation, a computer's instruction set, a programming language, or a cellular automaton) is said to be Turing-complete or computationally universal if it can be used to simulate any Turing machine [1] [2] (devised by English mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing).
Turing is a high-level, general purpose programming language developed in 1982 by Ric Holt and James Cordy, at University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. It was designed to help students taking their first computer science course learn how to code.
Among the 88 possible unique elementary cellular automata, Rule 110 is the only one for which Turing completeness has been directly proven, although proofs for several similar rules follow as simple corollaries (e.g. Rule 124, which is the horizontal reflection of Rule 110). Rule 110 is arguably the simplest known Turing complete system. [2] [5]
Turing completeness is the ability for a computational model or a system of instructions to simulate a Turing machine. A programming language that is Turing complete is theoretically capable of expressing all tasks accomplishable by computers; nearly all programming languages are Turing complete if the limitations of finite memory are ignored.
The language has been used for theorem proving, [6] expert systems, [7] term rewriting, [8] type systems, [9] and automated planning, [10] as well as its original intended field of use, natural language processing. [11] [12] Prolog is a Turing-complete, general-purpose programming language, which is well-suited for intelligent knowledge ...
However, it is possible to construct Turing complete machines using an instruction based on other arithmetic operations, e.g., addition. For example, one variation known as DLN (Decrement and jump if not zero) has only two operands and uses decrement as the base operation. For more information see Subleq derivative languages .
TeX82 also uses fixed-point arithmetic instead of floating-point, to ensure reproducibility of the results across different computer hardware, [9] and includes a real, Turing-complete programming language, following intense lobbying by Guy Steele. [10] In 1989, Donald Knuth released new versions of TeX and Metafont. [11]
The success of the Church–Turing thesis prompted variations of the thesis to be proposed. For example, the physical Church–Turing thesis states: "All physically computable functions are Turing-computable." [54]: 101 The Church–Turing thesis says nothing about the efficiency with which one model of computation can simulate another.