Hypercomputation is a relatively new theory of computation which treats computing methods and devices that transcend the Church-Turing thesis. This book will provide a thorough description of the field of hypercomputation, covering all attempts at devising conceptual hypermachines and all new promising computational paradigms that may eventually lead to the construction of a hypermachine.

Readers will reach a deeper understanding of what computability is and why the Church-Turing thesis poses an arbitrary limit to what actually can be computed. Hypercomputing is quite a novel idea, and therefore the book is interesting to the reader in its own right. The most significant features of the book, however, will be the descriptions of the various attempts of hypercomputation: from trial-and-error machines to the exploration of the human mind treated as a device with computational abilities. Hypercomputation: Computing Beyond the Church-Turing Barrier is fairly self-contained but requires a solid background in mathematics (calculus, discrete mathematics, algebra, and topology).

Topics and Features:

* Comprehensive examination of the hypercomputation field

* In-depth presentation of the current status of computation and its potential

* Philosophical and pragmatic approach to the limits of computation

* The human mind treated as a device with computational abilities, and its possible implications

* New, promising computing paradigms

This state-of-the-art monograph will be of interest to those interested in exploring this exciting new branch of Computer Science. It will be of particular interest to academics, engineers, and researchers in Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics.

Apostolos Syropoulos holds a Diploma in Physics from the University of Ioannina, Greece, a M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Göteborg, Göteborg. Sweden, and a Ph.D. in Theoretical Computer Science from the Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, Greece. He has published papers in the areas of categorical semantics, natural computing, programming language theory, Web-oriented technologies, and digital typography.

In addition, the prospective author has presented his work in the workshop of the European COST Action Group 16 (Multivalued Logics) that was held in Vienna, Austria in 1998. He is also the team leader of the Greek Molecular Computing Group, which is a member of the European Molecular Computing Consortium, whose director is Professor Grzegorz Rezenberg. He was also member of the Democritus University team on Industrial Mathematics of the European Initiative on Mathematics in Industry. Last, but not least, it is worth to mention that recently the prospective author has published a book on the Perl programming language (in Greek).

Hypercomputation is a relatively new theory of computation that is about computing methods and devices that transcend the so-called Church-Turing thesis. This book will provide a thorough description of the field of hypercomputation covering all attempts at devising conceptual hypermachines and all new promising computational paradigms that may eventually lead to the construction of a hypermachine.

Readers of this book will get a deeper understanding of what computability is and why the Church-Turing thesis poses an arbitrary limit to what can be actually computed. Hypercomputing is in and of itself quite a novel idea and as such the book will be interesting in its own right. The most important features of the book, however, will be the thorough description of the various attempts of hypercomputation: from trial-and-error machines to the exploration of the human mind, if we treat it as a computing device.