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'An important topic, which is on the boundary between numerical analysis and computer science …. I found the book well written and containing much interesting material, most of the time disseminated in specialized papers published in specialized journals difficult to find. Moreover, there are very few books on these topics and they are not recent.'Numerical Algorithms (review of the first edition) This unique book provides concepts and background necessary to understand and build algorithms for computing the elementary functions. The author presents and structures the algorithms (hardware-oriented as well as software-oriented), and also discusses issues related to accurate floating-point implementation. The purpose is not to give'cookbook recipes'that allow one to implement a given function, but rather to provide the reader with tools necessary to build, or adapt, algorithms to their specific computing environment. The expanded second edition contains a number of revisions and additions, which incorporate numerous new results obtained during the last few years. New algorithms invented since 1997 – such as Matula's bipartite method, another table-based method due to Ercegovac, Lang, Tisserand, and Muller – as well as a new chapter on multiple-precision arithmetic have been added. In addition, the section on correct rounding of elementary functions has been fully reworked, also in the context of new results. Finally, the introductory presentation of floating-point arithmetic has been expanded, with more emphasis given to the use of the fused multiply-accumulate instruction. The book is an up-to-date presentation of information needed to understand and accurately use mathematical functions and algorithms in computational work and design. Graduates, professionals, and researchers in scientific computing, software engineering, and computer engineering will find the book a useful reference and resource.

From the original hard cover edition:In the modern age of almost universal computer usage, practically every individual in a technologically developed society has routine access to the most up-to-date cryptographic technology that exists, the so-called RSA public-key cryptosystem. A major component of this system is the factorization of large numbers into their primes. Thus an ancient number-theory concept now plays a crucial role in communication among millions of people who may have little or no knowledge of even elementary mathematics. Hans Riesel's highly successful first edition of this book has now been enlarged and updated with the goal of satisfying the needs of researchers, students, practitioners of cryptography, and non-scientific readers with a mathematical inclination. It includes important advances in computational prime number theory and in factorization as well as re-computed and enlarged tables, accompanied by new tables reflecting current research by both the author and his coworkers and by independent researchers. The book treats four fundamental problems: the number of primes below a given limit, the approximate number of primes, the recognition of primes and the factorization of large numbers. The author provides explicit algorithms and computer programs, and has attempted to discuss as many of the classically important results as possible, as well as the most recent discoveries. The programs include are written in PASCAL to allow readers to translate the programs into the language of their own computers. The independent structure of each chapter of the book makes it highly readable for a wide variety of mathematicians, students of applied number theory, and others interested in both study and research in number theory and cryptography. ​

Starting with Cook's pioneering work on NP-completeness in 1970, polynomial complexity theory, the study of polynomial-time com­ putability, has quickly emerged as the new foundation of algorithms. On the one hand, it bridges the gap between the abstract approach of recursive function theory and the concrete approach of analysis of algorithms. It extends the notions and tools of the theory of computability to provide a solid theoretical foundation for the study of computational complexity of practical problems. In addition, the theoretical studies of the notion of polynomial-time tractability some­ times also yield interesting new practical algorithms. A typical exam­ ple is the application of the ellipsoid algorithm to combinatorial op­ timization problems (see, for example, Lovasz [1986]). On the other hand, it has a strong influence on many different branches of mathe­ matics, including combinatorial optimization, graph theory, number theory and cryptography. As a consequence, many researchers have begun to re-examine various branches of classical mathematics from the complexity point of view. For a given nonconstructive existence theorem in classical mathematics, one would like to find a construc­ tive proof which admits a polynomial-time algorithm for the solution. One of the examples is the recent work on algorithmic theory of per­ mutation groups. In the area of numerical computation, there are also two tradi­ tionally independent approaches: recursive analysis and numerical analysis.

This book is a revised edition of the monograph which appeared under the same title in the series Research Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, Pit­ man, in 1986. In addition to a general effort to improve typography, English, and presentation, the main novelty of this second edition is the integration of some new material. Part of it is mine (mostly jointly with coauthors). Here is brief guide to these additions. I have augmented the account of categorical combinatory logic with a description of the confluence properties of rewriting systems of categor­ ical combinators (Hardin, Yokouchi), and of the newly developed cal­ culi of explicit substitutions (Abadi, Cardelli, Curien, Hardin, Levy, and Rios), which are similar in spirit to the categorical combinatory logic, but are closer to the syntax of A-calculus (Section 1.2). The study of the full abstraction problem for PCF and extensions of it has been enriched with a new full abstraction result: the model of sequential algorithms is fully abstract with respect to an extension of PCF with a control operator (Cartwright, Felleisen, Curien). An order­ extensional model of error-sensitive sequential algorithms is also fully abstract for a corresponding extension of PCF with a control operator and errors (Sections 2.6 and 4.1). I suggest that sequential algorithms lend themselves to a decomposition of the function spaces that leads to models of linear logic (Lamarche, Curien), and that connects sequentiality with games (Joyal, Blass, Abramsky) (Sections 2.1 and 2.6).

In 1994 Peter Shor [65] published a factoring algorithm for a quantum computer that finds the prime factors of a composite integer N more efficiently than is possible with the known algorithms for a classical com­ puter. Since the difficulty of the factoring problem is crucial for the se­ curity of a public key encryption system, interest (and funding) in quan­ tum computing and quantum computation suddenly blossomed. Quan­ tum computing had arrived. The study of the role of quantum mechanics in the theory of computa­ tion seems to have begun in the early 1980s with the publications of Paul Benioff [6]'[7] who considered a quantum mechanical model of computers and the computation process. A related question was discussed shortly thereafter by Richard Feynman [35] who began from a different perspec­ tive by asking what kind of computer should be used to simulate physics. His analysis led him to the belief that with a suitable class of'quantum machines'one could imitate any quantum system.

'This is a delightful little paperback which presents a day-by-day transcription of a course taught jointly by Pólya and Tarjan at Stanford University. Woods, the teaching assistant for the class, did a very good job of merging class notes into an interesting mini-textbook; he also included the exercises, homework, and tests assigned in the class (a very helpful addition for other instructors in the field). The notes are very well illustrated throughout and Woods and the Birkhäuser publishers produced a very pleasant text. One can count on [Pólya and Tarjan] for new insights and a fresh outlook. Both instructors taught by presenting a succession of examples rather than by presenting a body of theory…[The book] is very well suited as supplementary material for any introductory class on combinatorics; as such, it is very highly recommended. Finally, for all of us who like the topic and delight in observing skilled professionals at work, this book is entertaining and, yes, instructive, reading.'Mathematical Reviews (Review of the original hardcover edition)'The mathematical community welcomes this book as a final contribution to honour the teacher G. Pólya.'Zentralblatt MATH (Review of the original hardcover edition)