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Algorithmic adventures. From knowledge to magic. (English) Zbl 1175.68001

Berlin: Springer (ISBN 978-3-540-85985-7/hbk; 978-3-540-85986-4/ebook). xiii, 363 p. (2009).
This is a very attractive book which tries to involve the reader into the real computer science world. The goal of the book is to show beauty, depth and usefulness of the key ideas in computer science. Moreover, the book brings full understanding of the concepts in computer science and results presented.
The author of this book is a top researcher working on the fundamentals of informatics. In this book he invites the reader to explore the science of computing. The book starts with the development of computer science, algorithms and programming. Thanks to the exact definition of what an algorithm is, one was able to investigate the border between the automatically (algorithmically) solvable and unsolvable. Then the concepts of infinity, computability, computational complexity, nondeterminism and randomness are explained. Finally, some insight into emerging computing paradigms such as biological computing and quantum computing are presented. All selected topics mark milestones in the development of computer science. They show unexpected turns in searching for solutions, spectacular facts and depth in studying the fundamental concepts of science, such as determinism, causality, nondeterminism, randomness, algorithms, information, computational complexity, automation. The message of this book is that computer science is a fascinating research area with a big impact on the real world, full of spectacular ideas and great challenges. This book is a fascinating reading for students of all levels, and for those curious to learn about the science and magic of algorithms.
The book should be interesting reading for secondary school students and teachers as well.

MSC:

68-01 Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to computer science
68Q05 Models of computation (Turing machines, etc.) (MSC2010)
68Q17 Computational difficulty of problems (lower bounds, completeness, difficulty of approximation, etc.)
68Q25 Analysis of algorithms and problem complexity
68Q45 Formal languages and automata
68W40 Analysis of algorithms
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