There are many references to it in public discussions, but trying to learn about it from Wikipedia is like reading in a new foreign language.
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A Turing Machine is an idea for a simple computer. The idea was revolutionary at the time for a couple reasons.
1. Most machines at the time only did one thing. The Turing Machine could be programmed to do many different things, just like our modern computers nowadays.
2. It turns out that being programmable is extremely powerful, and that a simple Turing Machine can actually do anything a modern computer can, it just might do it way slower and be less practical about it.
3. A Turing Machine was used to help crack the Nazi encryption, providing a massive advantage to the allied powers in WWII. In this case, it wasn’t just an idea. An actual usable Turing Machine was built.
Lots of people mention that a Turing Machine uses tape. The tape is just a way to write down instructions to program the machine. They didn’t have hard drives or discs back then, so they used tape like in old fashioned VHS. Ya know, where the video needed to be rewinded after because it was on actual tape instead of a disc.
Some people mentioned “state machine.” This means that a Turing Machine has rules about how it operates that can be programmed. Once you start running a program, the TM will use it’s rules. Each “state” is one freeze frame of the machine running. It sees one piece of the tape and decides what to do next. If the program doesn’t work right, that’s because it made the wrong choice at some state, and the rules for that state should be fixed.
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