A 20-year-old self-taught programmer has won a $25,000 prize by proving that even the simplest of computers can do tough mathematics.
In May, mathematician and businessman Stephen Wolfram of Champaign, Illinois, announced a challenge involving a mechanical calculator known as a Turing machine. Some kinds of TM are 鈥渦niversal computers鈥� 鈥� given enough time and memory, they can solve almost any problem in mathematics. Wolfram wanted to know whether the simplest possible TM was also universal.
Now Alex Smith, an undergrad at the University of Birmingham, UK, has shown that it is. Since TMs are loose models for computing devices built from biological molecules, including DNA, Smith鈥檚 proof boosts hopes that these molecules may one day be the basis for such computers, Wolfram says.
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