Minsky's small universal Turing machine. Offprint

Robinson, Raphael M. (1911-91). Minsky's small universal Turing machine. Offprint from International Journal of Mathematics 2 (1991). 551-562pp. 248 x 160 mm. Without wrappers as issued. Very good.

First Edition, Offprint Issue. Robinson, a professor of mathematics at UC Berkeley, did major work on the foundations of mathematics. In the present paper, one of Robinson's last publications, he discussed Minsky's 4-symbol 7-state Turing machine, which Minsky constructed in 1962. "This paper contains everything that is needed for an understanding of [Minsky's] machine, including a complete description of its operation. Minsky's machine remains one of the minimal known Turing machines. That is, there is no known such machine which decreases one parameter without increasing the other" (p. 551). From the library of Martin Davis.