A Model Railroad That Computes

tri44id writes "Several blogs have noted an Austrian team that has built a model train set that is a primitive computer. I have to point out, though, that it's actually only a Finite State Machine, like a pocket calculator, not a general-purpose device. Their plan for a general purpose layout is for an infinite-state machine, not a FSM+tape that Turing envisioned in his original paper. Turing took the concept a further step, by presenting a Universal Turing Machine that embodies a special set of states and transitions that allows its tape to be programmable to emulate any other TM. Do Slashdot readers know of any mechanical implementations of a truly Universal Turing Machine? (Danny Hillis' famous tinkertoy tic-tac-toe machine has neither infinite tape nor programmability, and is thus yet another FSM. It shouldn't be hard to elaborate the Austrian model train FSM to use a series of cars carrying movable magnets to represent Turing's tape cells writable with different symbols, and thus become a true TM or even UTM."

Comments

Re:Just state machine?

[northcat]

Holy shit, they patented the double-click. Where is the slashdot article on this, I think I missed it?

Re:Too much time

[poopdeville]

Oh my, aren't we pretentious?

A mathematician--to wit, a pure mathematician! At 18, at most! Without having gone through college! Please, oh wise sage, help me pay my dues and finish my dissertation so that I might call myself a mathematician too!

Re:Too much time

[poopdeville]

Oh my! A mathematician and a psychiatrist too! Here's some unsolicited advice: don't give strangers unsolicited advice.

Doing mathematics does not make one a mathematician. One needs to make significant contributions to the field for that. The title is reserved for people who have. Until you've done that, you're either too stupid to realize how big a faux pas you've committed, or just a little shit with a big ego.