Book anouncement


Computability and Models, Perspectives East and West

edited by
S. Barry Cooper School of Mathematics, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Sergei S. Goncharov Deptartment of Mechanics and Mathematics, Novosibirsk State University, Russia

Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers Hardbound, ISBN 0-306-47400-X January 2003, 388 pp. EUR 142.00 / USD 135.00 / GBP 90.50

Book Series: UNIVERSITY SERIES IN MATHEMATICS

There are few notions as fundamental to contemporary science as those of computability and modelling. 'Computability and Models' attempts to make some of the exciting and important new research developments in this area accessible to a wider readership. Written by international leaders drawn from major research centres both East and West, this book is an essential addition to scientific libraries serving both specialist and the interested non-special reader.

ORDER AT: http://www.wkap.nl/prod/b/0-306-47400-X


From the Preface

Science involves descriptions of the world we live in. It also depends on nature exhibiting what we can best describe as a high algorithmic content. The theme running through this collection of papers is that of the interaction between descriptions, in the form of formal theories, and the algorithmic content of what is described, namely of the models of those theories. This appears most explicitly here in a number of valuable, and substantial, contributions to what has until recently been known as `recursive model theory' - an area in which researchers from the former Soviet Union (in particular Novosibirsk) have been pre-eminent. There are also articles concerned with the computability of aspects of familiar mathematical structures, and - a return to the sort of basic underlying questions considered by Alan Turing in the early days of the subject - an article giving a new perspective on computability in the real world. And, of course, there are also articles concerned with the classical theory of computability, including the first widely available survey of work on quasi-reducibility.

The contributors, all internationally recognised experts in their fields, have been associated with the three-year INTAS-RFBR Research Project 'Computability and Models' (Project No. 972-139), and most have participated in one or more of the various international workshops (in Novosibirsk, Heidelberg and Almaty) and other research activities of the network. Although based on just eight research centres - Almaty, Heidelberg, Ivanovo, Kazan, Leeds, Novosibirsk, Siena and Turin - the project has acted as a focus for researchers from all over Europe and beyond. This has been an exciting and rewarding experience for everybody involved, and has helped transform the fragmented European scene of ten or more years ago (so vividly described by George Odifreddi in his entertaining introduction to this volume) into the lively community of researchers we now see developing.

The articles which follow approach this important and growing area of research from many different angles. The authors were encouraged to provide readable introductions to their research. All have responded either with timely surveys of work inadequately covered elsewhere, or with interesting and important new results, with clear pointers to the wider context. All articles have been rigorously refereed, and revised accordingly.


Contents

Introduction - P. Odifreddi.
Truth-Table Complete Computably Enumerable Sets - M.M. Arslanov.
Completeness and Universality of Arithmetical Numbering - S. Badaev, S. Goncharov, A. Sorbi.
Algebraic Properties of Rogers Semilattices of Arithmetical Numberings - S. Badaev, S. Goncharov, S. Podzorov, A. Sorbi.
Isomorphism Types and Theories of Rogers Semilattices of Arithmetical Numberings - S. Badaev, S. Goncharov, A. Sorbi.
Computability over Topological Structures - V. Brattka.
Incomputability In Nature - S.B. Cooper, P. Odifreddi.
Gems in the Field of Bounded Queries - W. Gasarch.
Finite End Intervals in Definable Quotients of E - E. Herrmann.
A Tour of Robust Learning - S. Jain, F. Stephan.
On Primitive Recursive Permutations - I. Kalimullin.
On Self-Embeddings of Computable Linear Orders - S. Lempp, A.S. Morozov, C.F.D. McCoy, D.R. Solomon
Definable Relations on the Computably Enumerable Degrees - A. Li.
Quasi-Degrees of Recursively Enumerable Sets - R.Sh. Omanadze.
Positive Structures - V. Selivanov.
Local Properties of the Non-Total Enumeration Degrees - B. Solon.