Event Detail

Most logicians and theoretical computer scientists are familiar with Alan Turing’s 1936 seminal paper setting the stage for the foundational (discrete) theory of computation. Most however remain unaware of Turing’s 1948 seminal paper introducing the notion of condition, setting the stage for a natural theory of complexity for what I call the “other theory of computation” emanating from the classical tradition of numerical analysis, equation solving and the continuous mathematics of calculus. This talk will recognize Alan Turing’s work in the foundations of numerical computation (in particular, his 1948 paper “Rounding-Off Errors in Matrix Processes”), how it provides a unifying concept for the two major traditions of the Theory of Computation, and its influence on complexity theory today.