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Feynman Lectures on Computation (Frontiers in Physics)
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Feynman Lectures on Computation (Frontiers in Physics) Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
A Feynman look at computers and computing
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There is an amazing amount of material in this small volume, and it is presented in Feynman's
very clear style. It covers to some depth many of the topics of a computer science education,
but also includes a lot of material from physics and engineering related to how semiconductor
chips of the early eightys operate.
The early chapters explain how a computer does a few simple operations, and how longer and longer
sequences of simple operations accomplish more complex tasks. Feynman continues with a look at
the details of the operations, as implemented in gates, decoders, flip flops, and other bits of
hardware. He continues with several topics from computer science, such as finite state machines,
Turing machines, computability, and a little bit about computer languages. Then he jumps back to
bits and the representation of information, including data compression, error detection and error
correction.
The last sections deal with physics, such as the thermodynamics of computation, and quantum mechanics
of computation.
I suspect most readers will find some sections much more interesting than others. Some places I
wished there was a way to give six or seven stars. A few times I wondered if I should skim the
remainder of the chapter or just skip it entirely. I read on and found a section I was glad I
had not missed.
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