Fundamentals of Computing
Leonid A. Levin

TL;DR
These notes provide an introductory overview of the fundamental concepts in the Theory of Computation, aimed at undergraduates, emphasizing principles over model-specific details, with a focus on fostering interest and understanding.
Contribution
First comprehensive set of lecture notes for an undergraduate course on the Theory of Computation, emphasizing core principles and pedagogical clarity.
Findings
Introduces basic concepts of computation theory
Provides systematic approach to teaching fundamentals
Serves as a resource for course design and self-study
Abstract
These are notes for the course CS-172 I first taught in the Fall 1986 at UC Berkeley and subsequently at Boston University. The goal was to introduce the undergraduates to basic concepts of Theory of Computation and to provoke their interest in further study. Model-dependent effects were systematically ignored. Concrete computational problems were considered only as illustrations of general principles. The notes are skeletal: they do have (terse) proofs, but exercises, references, intuitive comments, examples are missing or inadequate. The notes can be used for designing a course or by students who want to refresh the known material or are bright and have access to an instructor for questions. Each subsection takes about a week of the course.
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsComputability, Logic, AI Algorithms
