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155, The Church-Turing Thesis The terms algorithmic and computable are normally used synonomously, since any computation can be viewed as an algorithm and vice versa. The notion of Turing computable is dened in Chapter 5 (Dention 5.17). Briey, f is Turing computable if there is a Turing machine M such that, for any w in the domain of f , M halts on input w with f (w) on the tape. Given this, the Church-Turing Thesis is: Intuitively Computable (or Algorithmic) Turing Computable The opposite implication Turing Computable Intuitively Computable (Algorithmic) is considered obvious. Any reasonable person should agree that the action of a Turing machine is algorithmic so that a function computable by a Turing machine is intuitively computable. The Thesis itself, however, is a matter of speculation. Two reasons to believe it is correct are: 1. Lack of known counterexample So far no one has produced a function that any reasonable person would agree is algorithmic and that cannot be computed by a Turing machine. 2. Equivalence of all reasonable models Numerous models of computability have been proposed, and all have been shown to be equivalent. Some well-known models of computability are: Calculus (Church, 1936) Turing machines (Turing, 1936) Recursive functions (Kleene, 1936) Production systems (Post, 1943) Markov algorithms (Markov, 1954) Abacus computability (Boolos and Jereys, 1974) And there have been many others.

The Church-Turing Thesis is related to programming languages by: Bohm, C. and G. Jacopini, Flow diagrams, Turing machines, and languages with only two formation rules, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 9, No. 5, May 1966, pp. 336-371. which shows that any Turing machine can be simulated in any programming language that has only three control structures, namely, the sequence structure (sometimes called sequential composition, i.e., instuctions are executed in the order in which they appear in the program), selection structure (e.g., if statements), and repetition structure (e.g., while statements). Thus, if you accept the Church-Turing thesis, this shows that any programming language that provides these control structures is capable of representing (i.e., executing as a program) any conceivable algorithm.