Understanding Computation: Pillars, Paradigms, Principles

Preface.- I: Introduction.- 1 Introducing Computation Theory.- 2 Introducing the Book.- II: Pillar S: STATE.- 3 Pure State-Based Computational Models.- 4 The Myhill-Nerode Theorem: Implications and Applications.- 5 Online Turing Machines and the Implications of Online Computing.- 6 Pumping: Computational Pigeonholes in Finitary Systems.- 7 Mobility in Computing: An FA Navigates a Mesh.- 8 The Power of Cooperation: Teams of MFAs on a Mesh.- III: Pillar E: ENCODING.- 9 Countability and Uncountability: The Precursors of ENCODING.- 10 Computability Theory.- 11 A Church-Turing Zoo of Computational Models.- 12 Pairing Functions as Encoding Mechanisms.- IV: Pillar N: NONDETERMINISM.- 13 Nondeterminism as Unbounded Parallelism.- 14 Nondeterministic Finite Automata.- 15 Nondeterminism as Unbounded Search.- 16 Complexity Theory.- V: Pillar P: PRESENTATION/SPECIFICATION.- 17 The Elements of Formal Language Theory.- A A Chapter-Long Text on Discrete Mathematics.- B Selected Exercises, by Chapter.- List of ACRONYMS and SYMBOLS.- References.- Index.