

Introduction to Computation Theory - rogercosseboom
http://hnr.dnsalias.net/wordpress/2009/06/introduction-to-computation-theory-part-one/

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RiderOfGiraffes
I look forward to seeing some actual computation theory. Despite the promise
of the title, all he does here is present the well-known idea that there are
uncountable infinities.

Well-written, but covering a well-travelled path. I await something
interesting and less well-known.

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HenryR
Hi - author here.

Yes, you're correct that I actually don't get as far as the computation.
That's coming next - at over 2,000 words it became apparent that the series
needed to be segmented.

(I should have called this part 0, or maybe part aleph-0 :))

I won't be blazing new trails here though. My aim is to cover, roughly, the
following:

* Turing's attack on the Entschiedungsproblem and the halting problem (if space permits, some context regarding Godel) * The correspondence between Turing Machines and natural numbers, and the corollary that most real numbers are uncomputable. * Rice's theorem, and recursive and recursively enumerable sets. * Possibly some mention of Chaitin's Omega.

All should be covered in an undergraduate course on computability - however I
see such misunderstanding of simple ideas like the halting problem that come
from a shaky grasp of the unintuitive basics that I wanted to write a genuine
introduction.

I'd appreciate any further suggestions for content!

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larryfreeman
This is a very well-written introduction.

Having read through my share of textbooks on the subject, it is very
refreshing to read this blog entry.

It is nice to see the fundamentals of computation theory presented in a lucid
and engaging manner.

