The Legacy of Turing in Numerical Analysis

摘要

Alan Mathison Turing is revered among computer scientists for laying down the foundations of theoretical computer science via the introduction of the Turing machine, an abstract model of computation upon which, an elegant notion of cost and a theory of complexity can be developed. In this paper we argue that the contribution of Turing to "the other side of computer science", namely the domain of numerical computations as pioneered by Newton, Gauss, &c, and carried out today in the name of numerical analysis, is of an equally foundational nature.