The Busy Beaver Problem
A NEW MILLENNIUM ATTACK
People involved in the Busy Beaver project
Bram van Heuveln
   Professor, Department of Cognitive Science

Selmer Bringsjord
   Professor, Department of Cognitive Science

Boleslaw Szymanski
   Professor, Department of Computer Science

Carlos Varela
   Professor, Department of Computer Science

Kyle Ross
   Rensselaer Graduate - Computer Science/Philosophy Dual Major
   PhD student at Chalmers University of Technology
   Research on tree normalization techniques and benefits
   Implementation of machine enumeration and execution strategy using tree normalization
   Significant contribution to superpaper
   Kyle's presentation on tree normalization

Owen Kellett
   Rensselaer Undergraduate - Computer Science Major
   Designed and developed Owen's Turing Machine Simulator
   Research on specific non-halting behaviors and detection algorithms
   Implementation of non-halt detection routines as extension of Kyle's code
   Owen's presentation on non halters
   Owen's Master's Thesis.

Shailesh Kelkar
   Rensselaer Graduate - Department of Computer Science
   Research and implementation of distributed computational approach to the Busy Beaver problem
   Shailesh's presentation on the Farmer Worker model

Busy Beaver in a Nut Shell
Consider a binary alphabet Turing Machine which is given an infinite, blank tape as input. If this machine halts, we define its productivity as the number of 1's left on the tape after the machine is run to completion. If it does not halt, the machine is given a productivity value of zero. Now consider all of the binary alphabet Turing Machines that have n states. The machine in this set which has the highest productivity is called a Busy Beaver, and its productivity is the result of the Busy Beaver function BB(n).
Busy Beaver Research Team
Bram van Heuveln
Selmer Bringsjord
Boleslaw Szymanski
Carlos Varela
Kyle Ross
Owen Kellett
Shailesh Kelkar