Mathematician Alan Turing’s theoretical basis for all modern computers known as the ‘universal machine’ has been voted the greatest British innovation of the past century in a new poll.

The famous computer scientist came up with the theory, on which all modern computing is based, in a paper ‘on computable numbers’ in 1936. He described a device that would read symbols on a tape and proposed that the tape could be used to program the machine.

However it was not until later that Turing’s ideas were realised as practical machines.

The ‘universal machine’ came top of a poll to find the greatest British innovation of the past 100 years.

Find out more  http://www.topbritishinnovations.org/