This is an implementation of The Busy Beaver Problem in Python and C++. It was written by Peteris Krumins (peter@catonmat.net). His blog is at http://www.catonmat.net -- good coders code, great reuse. The code is licensed under the MIT license. The code was written as a part of article "The Busy Beaver Problem" on my website. The whole article can be read at: http://www.catonmat.net/blog/busy-beaver/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Table of contents: [1] Introduction to The Busy Beaver Problem. [2] Example Busy Beaver Turing Machine with 2 states. [3] Busy Beaver Turing Machines for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 states. [4] busy-beaver.cpp and busy-beaver.py C++ and Python programs. [5] draw_turing_machine.pl Perl program. [1]-Introduction-to-The-Busy-Beaver-Problem----------------------------------- The busy beaver problem is a fun theoretical computer science problem to know. Intuitively, the problem is to find the smallest program that outputs as many data as possible and eventually *halts*. More formally it goes like this - given an n-state Turing Machine with a two symbol alphabet {0, 1}, what is the maximum number of 1s that the machine may print on an initially blank tape (0-filled) before halting? It turns out that this problem can't be solved. For a small number of states it can be reasoned about, but it can't be solved in general. Theorists call such problems non-computable. Currently people have managed to solve it for n=1,2,3,4 (for Turing Machines with 1, 2, 3 and 4 states) by reasoning about and running all the possible Turing Machines, but for n = 5 this task has currently been impossible. While most likely it will be solved for n=5, theorists doubt that it shall ever be computed for n=6. ... Continue reading on http://www.catonmat.net/blog/busy-beaver/ [2]-Example-Busy-Beaver-Turing-Machine-with-2-states-------------------------- Here is an example of a 2-state busy beaver. It's a Turing machine. a0 -> b1r a1 -> b1l b0 -> a1l b1 -> h1r The initial tape is filled with 0's. The starting state is 'a' and the halting state is 'h'. The notation 'a0 -> b1r' means "if we are in the state 'a' and the current symbol on the tape is '0', then put a '1' in the current cell, switch to state 'b' and move to the right 'r'. This process repeats until the machine ends up in the halting state 'h'. When run, it produces 4 ones on the tape and halts. Here are all the tape changes. The tape is infinite and initially blank (filled with 0's). . starting state | v state change ------------ ...|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|... a0 -> b1r ...|0|0|0|0|1|0|0|0|0|0|... b0 -> a1l ...|0|0|0|0|1|1|0|0|0|0|... a1 -> b1l ...|0|0|0|0|1|1|0|0|0|0|... b0 -> a1l ...|0|0|0|1|1|1|0|0|0|0|... a0 -> b1r ...|0|0|1|1|1|1|0|0|0|0|... b1 -> h1r HALT ...|0|0|1|1|1|1|0|0|0|0|... The busy beaver stopped after 6 steps and the tape got filled with 4 ones. [3]-Busy-Beaver-Turing-Machines-for-1-2-3-4-5-and-6-states-------------------- Turing Machine for 1-state Busy Beaver: a0 -> h1r The tape gets filled with 1 one and it terminates after 1 step. Turing Machine for 2-state Busy Beaver: a0 -> b1r a1 -> b1l b0 -> a1l b1 -> h1r The tape gets filled with 4 ones and it terminates after 6 steps. Turing Machine for 3-state Busy Beaver: a0 -> b1r a1 -> h1r b0 -> c0r b1 -> b1r c0 -> c1l c1 -> a1l The tape gets filled with 6 ones and it terminates after 14 steps. Turing Machine for 4-state Busy Beaver: a0 -> b1r a1 -> b1l b0 -> a1l b1 -> c0l c0 -> h1r c1 -> d1l d0 -> d1r d1 -> a0r The tape gets filled with 13 ones and it terminates after 107 steps. Turing Machine for 5-state Busy Beaver: a0 -> b1l a1 -> a1l b0 -> c1r b1 -> b1r c0 -> a1l c1 -> d1r d0 -> a1l d1 -> e1r e0 -> h1r e1 -> c0r The tape gets filled with 4098 ones and it terminates after 47176870 steps. Turing Machine for 6 state Busy Beaver: a0 -> b1r a1 -> e0l b0 -> c1l b1 -> a0r c0 -> d1l c1 -> c0r d0 -> e1l d1 -> f0l e0 -> a1l e1 -> c1l f0 -> e1l f1 -> h1r Currently best 6 state Busy Beaver outputs 4.6e1439 ones and terminates after 2.8e2879 steps. This result is a theoretical approximation. There are aproximately 0.3% of unchecked Turing Machines left. [4]-busy-beaver.cpp-and-busy-beaver.py-programs------------------------------- I decided to play with the busy beaver myself to verify the known results for n <= 5. I implemented a Turing Machine in Python, which turned out to be too slow, so I reimplemented it in C++. I also wrote a visualization tool in Perl that shows how the Turing Machine's tape changes from the start to the finish (see [5]). The Python program is called busy-beaver.py and it takes one argument - which n-state busy beaver to run. The C++ program is called busy-beaver.cpp and takes the same argument. Here is how to invoke the Python program: $ ./busy-beaver.py 2 Running Busy Beaver with 2 states. 0 10 11 011 0111 1111 1111 Busy beaver finished in 6 steps. The output is the tape changes and the final line tells us how many steps it took. You can use the tape change output and generate an image that shows the tape changes in a much visual way. See the Perl program [5] below. To use the C++ program, you have to first compile it: $ g++ busy-beaver.cpp -o busy-beaver And then you can run it as any other program: $ ./busy-beaver 3 Running Busy Beaver with 3 states. 0 10 101 111 1111 111101 111111 Busy Beaver finished in 14 steps. [5]-draw_turing_machine.pl-Perl-program. I also wrote a visualization program for the output from busy-beaver program. It takes the 0's and 1's you see above and turns into a nice png image. Take a look at the original article http://www.catonmat.net/blog/busy-beaver/ to see how these images look. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ That's it. Enjoy the beavers! :) Sincerely, Peteris Krumins http://www.catonmat.net