The other day I was at the public library looking for a book. Their on-line catalog had it available, but it must have been misshelved. However; the book right next to its empty slot looked kind of interesting. So I checked it out instead. It turned out to be a pretty interesting read about mathematics. In Paul Hoffman's Archimedes' Revenge he covers a wide range of mathematical topics from the giant egg of Vegreville, Alberta to the pharmaceutical use of the Mobius strip. There is a chapter on Alan Turing and the Turing Machine. The basic premise being that given a well-defined state diagram a whole host of problems could be solved quickly and reliably. In the text they gave the state diagram for determining if a word a palindrome (spelled the same way backwards as it is forwards). Just for fun I implemented it in C#. In looking at the code it struck me that the concept of repeatedly following a set of defined instructions is well engraved and practiced today but has his algorithms also endured the test of time?
I'll soon be looking for another book to read. Does anyone have any recommendations?