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cover of episode How Amateurs Solved a Major Computer Science Puzzle

How Amateurs Solved a Major Computer Science Puzzle

2025/7/1
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Quanta Science Podcast
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Ben Brubaker
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Samir Patel
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Ben Brubaker: Busy Beaver 游戏是一个引人入胜的数学难题，它探索了简单计算机程序行为的极限。这个游戏吸引了许多非专业的数学和计算机科学爱好者，他们出于对谜题的热爱而参与其中。一年前，一个由全球各地贡献者组成的在线协作团队取得了突破性进展，他们共同努力解决了这个难题。这个挑战的核心在于寻找运行时间极长但最终会停止的图灵机程序。解决这个问题需要深入理解计算机科学中的一个基本问题：如何判断一个给定的程序是否会永远运行或最终停止。Busy Beaver 游戏不仅是一个智力挑战，也与数学中一些未解决的问题相关联，可以用来评估这些问题的难度。 Samir Patel: 我一直对谜题情有独钟，无论是填字游戏还是其他类型的逻辑挑战。我欣赏数学证明中那种类似谜题的解决过程和结构。特别是那些需要数十年甚至几代人才能解决的难题，解决它们所带来的满足感是巨大的。Busy Beaver 挑战是一个不寻常的智力谜题，它吸引了来自各行各业的人们。这个谜题的解决过程不仅展示了人类的智慧和毅力，也揭示了计算机科学中一些最基本和最深刻的问题。

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The Busy Beaver game, invented in 1962 by Tibor Rado, challenges participants to find simple computer programs (Turing machines) that run for the longest possible time before stopping. It explores the limits of computation and the halting problem.
  • The Busy Beaver game involves finding Turing machines that run for a long time before stopping.
  • It explores the halting problem: determining if a program will stop or run forever.
  • The game uses Turing machines, theoretical models of computation.

Shownotes Transcript

The Busy Beaver Challenge, an open online collaboration, started in 2022 to finally solve a major problem in theoretical computer science. Over time, the online community grew to include more than 20 contributors from around the world, most of them without traditional academic credentials. In July 2024, the group announced that they finally solved the puzzle, bringing a conclusion to over 40 years of effort.

On this week’s episode of The Quanta Podcast, computer science staff writer Ben Brubaker explains the tantalizing Busy Beaver puzzle, which he covered in depth last year, in "With Fifth Busy Beaver, Researchers Approach Computation’s Limits.")

Each week on The Quanta Podcast, Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel speaks with the minds behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.