Computability: An Introduction to Recursive Function Theory - Softcover

Cutland, Nigel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521294657 ISBN 13: 9780521294652

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1980

Synopsis

What can computers do in principle? What are their inherent theoretical limitations? These are questions to which computer scientists must address themselves. The theoretical framework which enables such questions to be answered has been developed over the last fifty years from the idea of a computable function: intuitively a function whose values can be calculated in an effective or automatic way. This book is an introduction to computability theory (or recursion theory as it is traditionally known to mathematicians). Dr Cutland begins with a mathematical characterisation of computable functions using a simple idealised computer (a register machine); after some comparison with other characterisations, he develops the mathematical theory, including a full discussion of non-computability and undecidability, and the theory of recursive and recursively enumerable sets. The later chapters provide an introduction to more advanced topics such as Gödel's incompleteness theorem, degrees of unsolvability, the Recursion theorems and the theory of complexity of computation. Computability is thus a branch of mathematics which is of relevance also to computer scientists and philosophers. Mathematics students with no prior knowledge of the subject and computer science students who wish to supplement their practical expertise with some theoretical background will find this book of use and interest.

About this title

Review

"Dr. Cutland has produced here an excellent and much needed textbook which will undoubtedly help to establish recursion theory as a more widely taught branch of mainstream mathematics." Mathematics & Physics

Book Description

What can computers do in principle? What are their inherent theoretical limitations? The theoretical framework which enables such questions to be answered has been developed over the last fifty years from the idea of a computable function - a function whose values can be calculated in an automatic way. This book is an introduction to computability (recursive) theory.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1980
• ISBN 10: 0521294657
• ISBN 13: 9780521294652
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 262