Product Description

}From 1983 to 1986, the legendary physicist and teacher Richard Feynman gave a course at Caltech called Potentialities and Limitations of Computing Machines.Although the lectures are over ten years old, most of the material is timeless and presents a Feynmanesque overview of many standard and some not-so-standard topics in computer science. These include computability, Turing machines (or as Feynman said, Mr. Turings machines), information theory, Shannons Theorem, reversible computation, the thermodynamics of computation, the quantum limits to computation, and the physics of VLSI devices. Taken together, these lectures represent a unique exploration of the fundamental limitations of digital computers.Feynmans philosophy of learning and discovery comes through strongly in these lectures. He constantly points out the benefits of playing around with concepts and working out solutions to problems on your own-before looking at the back of the book for the answers. As Feynman says in the lectures: If you keep proving stuff that others have done, getting confidence, increasing complexities of your solutions-for the fun of it-then one day youll turn around and discovers that nobody actually did that one! And thats the way to become a computer scientist. }

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #202011 in Books
• Published on: 1996-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

A stimulating insight into Feynman's views on 'Computation'
A series of audio-taped lectures given at the Californian Institute of Technology (CalTech) from 1984 to 1986, supplemented by Feynman's own notebooks and contemporaneous lecture notes, provides the source material from which this book derives. Its title, which could equally accurately have been rendered "Lectures on the limits of Computation", hints at the interdisciplinary nature of the book (covering Physics, Mathematics, Quantum Mechanics, Electronics... etc.!).

The interesting Forewords provided by the Editors (detailing the book's progeny) and by Feynman himself (hinting at his often iconoclastic approach: e.g. "Computer Science" isn't really a Science - it's more closely related to Engineering) preface some fascinating Chapters which follow. Since Feynman's modus operandi is to think things through for oneself, he urges his students to do the same: in many Chapters there are Problems (which are indeed non-trivial exercises for the reader); but beware, no 'solutions' are provided!

The first Chapter is a short 'low-key' Introduction to Computers which introduces logical operations such as AND, XOR and NOT. The second Chapter, Computer Organization (sic) develops these primitive ideas and presents generic (wiring-diagram) implementations of these logical operations or gates. Feynman identifies a minimum, sufficient, set of logic diagrams - labelling them as AND, NOT, FANOUT and EXCHANGE. Using these primitives alone, any logic operation can be generated. The interesting concept of 'reversibility of a computation' is introduced here and dealt with more fully in Chapters five and six (q.v.).

The heart of the book (and the three Chapters which this reviewer most enjoyed) follow: Chapter three, The Theory of Computation (in which Feynman talks about Turing Machines - or, as Feynman has it, 'Mr. Turing's machine' - and analyses the so-called 'Halting' Problem. It includes an interesting discussion too about the differences between TMs and Finite State Machines). Chapter four is Coding and Information Theory: the premise being, echoing the (understated) theme of the book, what happens when computer components fail randomly? How can internal computation signals survive intact to allow a calculation to proceed?

Chapter five Reversible Computation and the Thermodynamics of Computing is a fascinating, if at times anti-intuitive, lecture on what computation actually is in terms of the entropy of the system. Chapter six (reprinted in full from 'Optics News', February 1985) requires the reader to have some pre-knowledge of Quantum Mechanics: it's entitled Quantum Mechanical Computers and draws further on the theme of computational reversibility, among other related topics.

Chapter seven on the Physical Aspects of Computers has been somewhat overtaken by technology (as the editors' opening Caveat explains); Feynman here discusses nMOS chips which, since the mid-nineteen eighties, have been superseded by CMOS technology. This is a chapter that describes the physics of semi-conductors and indeed touches on their manufacture.

An Afterword: Memories of Richard Feynman, written by co-editor Tony Hey, relates some illuminating personal anecdotes about "Dick" Feynman whilst the former was at CalTech as a postgraduate student fresh from Oxford. With numerous clear labelled diagrams and equations, and many helpful footnotes, concluding with a Suggested Reading section and a full Index, this enjoyable book can be recommended to those involved in any aspect of "Computer Science". The editors have done a stalwart job in bringing to the public domain, in a well-presented and readable way, the 'limits of computation' as viewed with the clarity of a "Feynmanesque" lens.

An Excellent Overview of Computer Theory & Technology
Feynman explains the fundamentals of computers--both themathematics and the physics at the heart of computing. He gives the appropriate amount of detail, enough to explain his points, but not so much that the reader gets bogged down. He also makes few assumptions about the reader's prior knowledge, so that anyone with a scientific or mathematical background can easily understand.

...It's R.P Feynman...what more can I say.
The Feynman lectures on Computation (volume 1) takes into account an all-encompassing view of the underlying theories of computer science and electrical engineering as it relates to computer systems development. Volume 1 sets a solid foundation for advanced topics in the field and I would highly reccommend the book for any freshmen EE or CS student wishing to see what the next few years have in store for them. Being a computer systems engineer, I can't wait until volume 2 is released.