Mind over Computer 17 In 1935, Turing was made a Fellow E = a — Lee of King’s College, Cambridge, and became [J Bern | interested in whether mathematical | A Bes proofs could be found automatically. ff @ y/ TK | He wanted to know whether solving a Jj Bhd \ mathematical puzzle was simply a matter i of working through all the possibilities in a ul g al may methodical manner, or whether something | ne oy 7 " | more subtle was required. Although chess | We is a fantastically complex game, it is finite, oe * Ui: a big enough, fast enough computer can | é F play the perfect game. Is this the case [iii ay ex with discovering knowledge? Could a big Wines enough, fast enough computer calculate all = ee a the knowledge in the Universe? Is Douglas = <a? Adams’ fabled computer Deep Thought a ‘om a | possibility, able to calculate the answer to \ prey. the ultimate question of ‘life, the Universe | 9 i i IN, and everything, albeit with a more \t ~) Bikey enlightening answer than 42? v. “il i V4 Turing boiled down the process x of pencil and paper computation to a - Model of the Antikythera systematic program — a computer program. Mechanism He proposed a thought experiment where he would run every possible program and see if such a procedure would yield the solution to every imaginable mathematical problem. He was able to show this would lead to a paradox and concluded the universal problem solver could not exist. His discovery is one of the most important of the 20" century — in the same league as relativity and quantum mechanics - and I will use it as my main tool in trying to explain the difference between brains and computers. Although Turing’s original paper was not intended as a blueprint for a practical device, he was one of those rare mathematicians who also liked to tinker with real world machines. The outbreak of the Second World War made the practical application of his work very important, and in Chapter 8 I will relate some of the code breaking stories that were t