"The theory of computing provides computer science with concepts, models, and formalisms for reasoning about the resources needed to carry out computations and about the efficiency of the computations that use these resources. In addition, it provides tools to measure the difficulty of combinatorial problems both absolutely and in comparison with other problems.".

"Requiring no explicit prerequisite knowledge, Computability and Complexity Theory introduces materials that are the core knowledge in the theory of computation. The book is self-contained, with a preliminary chapter describing key mathematical concepts and notations and subsequent chapters moving from the qualitative aspects of classical computability theory to the quantitative aspects of complexity theory.

Dedicated chapters on undecidability NP-completeness and relative computability round of the work, which focuses on the limitations of computability and the distinctions between feasible and intractable."--BOOK JACKET.