Letter

Scope and Content

From W W Boone, Catholic University of America, [William Werner Boone, 1920-1983, mathematician] says has sent copies of his letter to NPL and King's College, as well as to Manchester, as not sure where to find Turing. Boone explains he is reviewing Turing's "The word problem in semigroups with cancellation" for the Journal of Symbolic Logic. He likes Turing's idea of "two phases" for the generalised Turing Machine: "What a simple and yet powerful idea!". He then discusses this in detail.

Related Material

The file has several other items in the file relating to the long-running issue of Boone's review. It was eventually published as "An analysis of Turing's 'The word problem in semigroups with cancellation'" Annals of Mathematics 1958 67(1) See also TUR/Add/48, 57, 59, 74, 132