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Explain The Universal Turing Machine in TOC

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34 views3 pages

Explain The Universal Turing Machine in TOC

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Sayan Adhikary
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Explain the universal Turing machine in TOC

Data Structure AlgorithmsComputer ScienceComputers

The Turing Machine (TM) is the machine level equivalent to a digital computer.
It was suggested by the mathematician Turing in the year 1930 and has become the
most widely used model of computation in computability and complexity theory.
The model consists of an input and output. The input is given in binary format form
on to the machine’s tape and the output consists of the contents of the tape when
the machine halts
The problem with the Turing machine is that a different machine must be
constructed for every new computation to be performed for every input output
relation.
This is the reason the Universal Turing machine was introduced which along with
input on the tape takes the description of a machine M.
The Universal Turing machine can go on then to simulate M on the rest of the
content of the input tape.
A Universal Turing machine can thus simulate any other machine.
The idea of connecting multiple Turing machine gave an idea to Turing −
 Can a Universal machine be created that can ‘simulate’ other
machines?
 This machine is called as Universal Turing Machine
This machine would have three bits of information for the machine it is simulating

 A basic description of the machine.


 The contents of machine tape.
 The internal state of the machine.
The Universal machine would simulate the machine by looking at the input on the
tape and the state of the machine.
It would control the machine by changing its state based on the input. This leads to
the idea of a “computer running another computer”.
It would control the machine by changing its state based on the input. This leads to
the idea of a “computer running another computer”.
The schematic diagram of the Universal Turing Machine is as follows −
Difference between Turing machine and Universal Turing machine:-
Turing Machine was first described by Alan Turing in the year 1936. It was primarily invented to
investigate the computability of a given problem. It accepts type-0 grammar which is Recursively
Enumerable language. The Turing machine has a tape of infinite length where we can perform read
and write operations. The infinite cells of the Turing machine can contain input symbols and blanks.
It has a head pointer that can move in any direction, it points to the cell where the input is being
read.

Universal Turing Machine simulates a Turing Machine. Universal Turing Machine can be
considered as a subset of all the Turing machines, it can match or surpass other Turing machines
including itself. Universal Turing Machine is like a single Turing Machine that has a solution to all
problems that is computable. It contains a Turing Machine description as input along with an input
string, runs the Turing Machine on the input and returns a result.

Introduction
A Turing Machine is an accepting device used to accept recursive Enumerable
Language generated by type 0 grammar. There are Three Types of Turing
Machines. In the following article, we will discuss the Universal Turing machine and
its formal definition. Before getting to it, let's briefly recap what Turing Machine
exactly is.
What is Turing Machine?
A Turing machine is a computational mathematical model. It is a type of CPU that
controls all data manipulation performed by a computer. It was proposed by the
mathematician Turing in 1930 and has become the most extensively used
computation model in computability and complexity theory.
A Turing machine can also compute everything that a real computer can compute.
For example, a Turing machine can simulate any function used in a programming
language. Some common examples include recursion and parameter passing. A
Turing machine can also be used to simplify algorithm statements.
What is Universal Turing Machine?
Turing was inspired by the idea of connecting multiple Turing machines. He asked
himself that can a universal machine be constructed that could simulate other
machines. He named this machine as Universal Turing Machine.
A Universal Turing Machine, in more specific terms, can imitate the behavior of an
arbitrary Turing machine over any collection of input symbols. Therefore, it is
possible to create a single machine to calculate any computable sequence.
The input of a UTM includes:
 The description of a machine M on the tape.
 The input data.

What is Universal Turing Machine(UTM)?


A Universal Turing Machine is a machine that can simulate an arbitrary Turing
machine over any collection of input symbols. It takes two inputs. The first is the
description of the machine, and the other is the input data.
Why do we need a Universal Turing Machine?
A Universal Turing Machine, in more specific terms, can imitate the behavior of any Turing
machine over any set of input symbols. Hence, we needed to build a single machine that
could be used to calculate any computable sequence.
What is the input of Universal Turing machine?
To use a Universal Turing Machine, you need to write some input on its tape and start the
machine. When the machine computes and halts, the value on the tape is the output. The
input of a UTM includes the description of a machine M and its input data.
Conclusion
In this article, we learned about Universal Turing Machines(UTM). We learned that
a Turing machine is called a Universal Turing Machine if it is powerful enough to
simulate any other Turing Machine.

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