TO THE STUDENT Welcome! You are about to embark on the study of a fascinating and important subject: the theory of computation. It comprises the fundamental mathematical properties of computer hardware, software, and certain applications thereof. In studying this subject, we seek to determine what can and cannot be computed, how quickly, with how much memory, and on which type of computational model. The subject has obvious connections with engineering practice, and, as in many sciences, it also has purely philosophical aspects.
