OT: Turing Google Doodle Day

Submitted by Blazefire on

I thought this board might appreciate a little thread on the Alan turing Google Doodle today, given the nature of most of the posters here. It's a computational logic engine (though obviously in this case it's just javascript and doesn't really solve anything.)

Anyway, for those of you having trouble, just pay attention to the symbols and remember the basic formulas for computer logic. A computer can do the following when it reaches a place:

Change that place to the opposite value (1 or 0)

Move ahead to the next place

Move back to the previous place

Change that place value IF it is a different value (1, 0 or empty). If it's not, move ahead or back.

Go To a designated spot in the program.

To solve any of the puzzles, just pay attention to what position the doodle will be working with (where have the arrows moved it to), what that position needs to be (it has to match the strip at the top), and what process will get it to match that value.

Example:

The code you need to match is 101. The code you've started with is 001. The machine will start from the beginning. Each time it makes a change, it starts back at the beginning.

You could set the machine so that it just flips the first two digits, but that won't work, because the first digit would get flipped to a one, then flipped back to a zero on its first time through. Instead, you want to set it so that if the first digit is 0, it becomes 1. If it's 1 or blank, the machine moves ahead to digit two. Same thing there.

Totally OT, I know, but it's June, and Turing deserves a moment of our time.

Oaktown Wolverine

June 23rd, 2012 at 1:50 AM ^

It was really sad to read about what happened to Turing because of his sexual orientation. I wonder how much more he could have done for mankind had he lived another 40 years.  

"Turing's homosexuality resulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952, when homosexual acts were still illegal in the United Kingdom. He accepted treatment with female hormones (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison. He died in 1954, just over two weeks before his 42nd birthday, fromcyanide poisoning. An inquest determined it was suicide;"

Bombadil

June 23rd, 2012 at 9:05 AM ^

Thanks Blazefire for the tips. I solved it after a couple tries but I still don't think I get the logic. I believe there is a large contingent of mgobloggers at Google and Apple, I'm sure they got it right away.

Doc Brown

June 23rd, 2012 at 9:07 AM ^

That was way too much fun. It brought back memories of my senior electronics lab for physicists. The last one took me a couple minutes but I got it eventually. 

LSAClassOf2000

June 23rd, 2012 at 11:12 AM ^

One of the reasons I enjoy Google is that, now and again, they do things like this. As an old programmer, I had a lot of fun reacquainting myself with Turing's work after that little exercise. Great way to get the mind going on a Saturday.

This person, however, had WAY too much  fun building their K-nex Turing machine...