ABSTRACT

When, in 1984?86, Richard P. Feynman gave his famous course on computation at the California Institute of Technology, he asked Tony Hey to adapt his lecture notes into a book. Although led by Feynman, the course also featured, as occasional guest speakers, some of the most brilliant men in science at that time, including Marvin Minsky, Charles Bennett, and John Hopfield. Although the lectures are now thirteen years old, most of the material is timeless and presents a ?Feynmanesque? overview of many standard and some not-so-standard topics in computer science such as reversible logic gates and quantum computers.

chapter One|19 pages

Introduction to Computers

chapter Two|32 pages

Computer Organization

chapter Three|42 pages

The Theory of Computation

chapter Four|43 pages

Coding and Information Theory

chapter Six|27 pages

Quantum Mechanical Computers

chapter Seven|72 pages

Physical Aspects of Computation

chapter |10 pages

Afterword: Memories of Richard Feynman