
Ask HN: Good books on computation - chewxy
Hey HN,<p>I&#x27;ve been mulling the notion of computation. I&#x27;m familiar with the lambda calculus and Turing machines. For example I understand insofar that beta reduction is computation. Or the movement of tape is computation. Or the common analogy that information is steady state in the energy space and computation is the work done in changing these energy states.<p>However, the more I try to pin down an exact definition of a computation the more it slips away like star systems in Tarkin&#x27;s grip. I seem to be missing some subtle understanding of computation.<p>I want recommendation on books that will help me understand computation in the way Jürgen Schmidhuber or Stephen Wolfram does. Some math is preferred, but without it being text-book dense would be nice.<p>I&#x27;ve thumbed through Sipser but it seems a bit obsessed over computational complexity. What I&#x27;m looking for is slightly more towards the pancompuationalist works.<p>Any recommendations is welcome
======
erwan
Here's a short-list:

\- _Calculating space_ by Konrad Zuse (See:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18325689](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18325689))

\- _The Annotated Turing_ by Charles Petzlod

\- _Introduction to Lambda Calculus_ by H. Barendregt (do the
exercises/proofs)

\- _Propositions as Types_ by Philip Wadler

\- Part III. of _Languages and Machines_ by Thomas Sudkamp

~~~
chewxy
My copy of Barendregt is well thumbed.

But that Zuse and Annotated Turing sounds interesting. Thanks

------
paolgiacometti
I suggest also

"What Can Be Computed? A Practical Guide to the Theory of Computation" by John
MacCormick

here's my review

[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/book-review-piero-
giacomelli/](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/book-review-piero-giacomelli/)

