This review volume consists of a set of chapters written by leading scholars, most of them founders of their fields. The volume is intended to explain the phenomenon of Randomness through the use of Computation, and to explore the connections of Randomness to other areas of scientific knowledge, especially its fruitful relationship to
Computability and
Complexity Theory, and also to areas such as
Probability, Statistics, Information Theory, Biology, Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Learning Theory and
Artificial Intelligence. The contributors cover these topics without neglecting important philosophical dimensions, sometimes going beyond the purely technical to formulate age old questions relating to matters such as determinism and free will. The scope of
Randomness Through Computation is novel. Each contributor shares their personal views and anecdotes on the various reasons and motivations which led them to the study of Randomness. Using a question and answer format, they share their visions from their several distinctive vantage points.
The following are the sections in which the contributions have been grouped: Stochastic Randomness and Probabilistic Deliberations | Randomness and Computation in Connection to the Physical World | Algorithmic Inference and Artificial Intelligence | Computational Complexity, Randomized Algorithms and Applications.
Excerpt from ACM Computing Reviews. Date Reviewed: 22 Feb, 2012:
I couldn't put this book down. Its presentation of a computational approach to randomness, with its strong focus on applications, is the best I have read. It is carefully edited and comprises several chapters--most of them are by leading experts, and some are even the founders of their respective fields.
...
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this gem of a book. Its target audience includes post-graduates and researchers in CS, statistics, applied mathematics, and related disciplines. It is surely a must-have book for any scientific library. Apart from research, the book also serves pedagogical and philosophical interests.
Reviewer: Soubhik Chakraborty
ACM Review #: CR139897
Full review online at the ACM Computing Reviews website.
Hector Zenil (B.Sc. Math UNAM, M.Phil Logic Paris 1, PhD Computer Science, Lille 1) is a researcher at the Behavioural and Evolutionary Theory Lab at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Sheffield; head of the Algorithmic Nature Group of LABORES (France); and senior research associate for Wolfram Research.
He is also a member of the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi); an honorary associate of ASSRU (Economics, University of Trento, Italy); a member of the Turing Centenary Advisory Committee in the UK; a member of LCCOMP and the C3-UNAM, and expatriate member of the national researchers body (SNI) of the council for science and technology of Mexico (Conacyt).
H. Zenil has held various visiting positions in the U.S. as a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 2008; an R&D Fellow at the Wolfram Research office in Cambridge, MA and a regular faculty member of the Wolfram Science Summer School (at the University of Vermont, USA and the CNR in Pisa, Italy).
