Computation and its Limits (Hardcover)

* Controversial and heavily debated topic of the limits of computation
* In-depth look at the topics surrounding the limits to computing set by the laws of nature
* Includes historical account of computing
* Highlights the computer/physics interaction
* Numerous lively figures to illustrate the text

Computation and its Limits is an innovative cross-disciplinary investigation of the relationship between computing and physical reality. It begins by exploring the mystery of why mathematics is so effective in science and seeks to explain this in terms of the modelling of one part of physical reality by another. Going from the origins of counting to the most blue-skies proposals for novel methods of computation, the authors investigate the extent to which the laws of nature and of logic constrain what we can compute. In the process they examine formal computability, the thermodynamics of computation and the promise of quantum computing.

Table Of Contents

1: Introduction

2: What is computation?

3: Mechanical computers and their limits

4: Logical limits to computability

5: Heat, information and geometry

6: Quantum computers

7: Beyond the logical limits of computing?

8: Hyper computing proposals