Bounded Queries in Recursion Theory

By Georgia Martin and William Gasarch

Book Overview

One of the major concerns of theoretical computer science is the classifi- cation of problems in terms of how hard they are. The natural measure of difficulty of a function is the amount of time needed to compute it (as a function of the length of the input). Other resources, such as space, have also been considered. In recursion theory, by contrast, a function is considered to be easy to compute if there exists some algorithm that computes it. We wish to classify functions that are hard, i.e., not computable, in a quantitative way. We cannot use time or space, since the functions are not even computable. We cannot use Turing degree, since this notion is not quantitative. Hence we need a new notion of complexity-much like time or spac that is quantitative and yet in some way captures the level of difficulty (such as the Turing degree) of a function.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1461268486
• ISBN13: 9781461268482
• Release Date: July 2013
• Publisher: Birkhauser
• Length: 353 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.2"