FOM: Wolfram?

[Robert M. Solovay]

He does claim to prove that a two symbol five-state Turing Machine is
universal. I'm not sure about the claim since the input tape to the
machine [if I understand his proof] has an infinte [but periodic]
background. All the earlier universality results involve only finitely
many non-blank squares.

He also has a section on mathematics and logic which I haven't read yet.

--Bob Solovay


On Sun, 2 Jun 2002, charles silver wrote:

>     A friend of mine has just informed me that some persons believe Stephen
> Wolfram's new book contains "exciting new material on logic and
> mathematics."   On the basis of a rudimentary internet search, I have not
> been able to figure out what's meant by this.   Can anyone help clarify
> this?
>
>     Thanks in advance.
>
> Charlie Silver
>
>