Ask a Teacher

A Turing machine is a hypothetical device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules. Despite its simplicity, a Turing machine can be adapted to simulate the logic of any computer algorithm, and is particularly useful in explaining the functions of a CPU inside a computer.

A Turing machine is the original idealized model of a computer, invented by Alan Turing in 1936. Turing machines are equivalent to modern electronic computers at a certain theoretical level, but differ in many details.