Computers are everywhere todayat work, in the bank, in artist's studios, in our pocketsyet they remain to many of us objects of irreducible mystery. How can today's computers perform such a bewildering variety of tasks if computing is just glorified arithmetic? The answer, as Martin Davis lucidly illustrates, lies in the fact that computers are engines of logic. Their hardware and software embody concepts developed over centuries by logicians such as Leibniz, Boole, and Godel, culminating in the amazing insights of Alan Turing. Readers will come away from this book with a revelatory understanding of how and why computers work. 8 b/w photographs. Published in hardcover as The Universal Computer.
- ISBN10 0393322297
- ISBN13 9780393322293
- Publish Date 31 October 2001
- Publish Status Inactive
- Out of Print 22 September 2011
- Publish Country US
- Imprint WW Norton & Co
- Format Paperback
- Pages 272
- Language English