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On The Turing Completeness of PowerPoint (SIGBOVIK)

Tom Wildenhain · 1.2M views · 2017-04-01 · 5:34

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Overview

A short SIGBOVIK 2017 presentation by Tom Wildenhain showing that PowerPoint animations are Turing complete, with a working Turing machine built in slides. The talk is delivered deadpan as a serious research result.

On Hacker News

HN repeatedly names it as one of the funniest and best talks, a favorite example of absurd computation.

Recommended by 8 HN people across 6 months · HN mentions 2017–2025

Topics

Computability & complexity theorySatire & parody
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powerpointturing machinesigbovikesoteric computinghumor

What people said

K0SM0S · 2020-01 · Strong recommendation

I think this drives your point with incredible wit: “On The Turing Completeness of PowerPoint (SIGBOVIK)” by Tom Wildenhain[1]. (5 minutes video) [1]: [VIDEO] (Nerding out should always be hilarious like that!) [2]: Recording of a guest lecture he gave for the Esoteric Programming Languages course at CMU. (~1h) [LINK]

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stanlarroque · 2018-02 · Strong recommendation

I can only think of one of the greatest videos[0] on Youtube when I read about unusual Turing complete systems. [0] [VIDEO]

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aeleos · 2018-01 · Strong recommendation

This is very similar in style to my favorite presentation and paper of all time, titled On The Turing Completeness of PowerPoint [0]. The research, presentation and paper were all created inside of powerpoint and it is probably the greatest thing ever made. If you enjoyed the above video you will definitely enjoy this. [0] [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Tom Wildenhain, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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