TE
TechEcho
Home24h TopNewestBestAskShowJobs
GitHubTwitter
Home

TechEcho

A tech news platform built with Next.js, providing global tech news and discussions.

GitHubTwitter

Home

HomeNewestBestAskShowJobs

Resources

HackerNews APIOriginal HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 TechEcho. All rights reserved.

Ask HN: Good books on computational complexity?

16 pointsby globalrevalmost 17 years ago
I am curious about computational complexity, P, NP and so on.<p>Wikipedia gives a good basic insight but doesn't go very deep.<p>What books do you recommend? Plus points for one that discusses how parallelism fits into this.

8 comments

gcvalmost 17 years ago
The best book on the subject I know of is Introduction to the Theory of Computation, by Michael Sipser. Very readable and lucid. Great exercises.
评论 #240519 未加载
rwalmost 17 years ago
Blog of a quantum computing theorist: <a href="http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/" rel="nofollow">http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/</a><p>P vs NP Millenium Prize intro paper, which is fairly accessible: <a href="http://www.claymath.org/millennium/P_vs_NP/Official_Problem_Description.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.claymath.org/millennium/P_vs_NP/Official_Problem_...</a><p>Complexity Theory: A Modern Approach (out of Princeton): <a href="http://www.cs.princeton.edu/theory/complexity/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cs.princeton.edu/theory/complexity/</a><p>PRIMES is in P (famous paper): <a href="http://www.math.princeton.edu/~annals/issues/2004/Sept2004/Agrawal.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.math.princeton.edu/~annals/issues/2004/Sept2004/A...</a>
YuriNiyazovalmost 17 years ago
The solution manual to Sipser's first edition is available through bootleg bittorrent trackers, which makes it good for self-study.
rmsalmost 17 years ago
<a href="http://www.complexitytheory.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.complexitytheory.com/</a><p>Edit: The lectures don't seem to be up there anymore but he links to this book which is free online pre-publication: <a href="http://www.cs.princeton.edu/theory/complexity/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cs.princeton.edu/theory/complexity/</a><p>Rudich's lectures are up for his undergrad class though, <a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/academic/class/15251/discretemath/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/academic/class/15251/di...</a>
keefealmost 17 years ago
The definitive algorithms book is Cormen : <a href="http://projects.csail.mit.edu/clrs/" rel="nofollow">http://projects.csail.mit.edu/clrs/</a> I think you should study this book and here is the MIT course to go along with it : <a href="http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-046JFall-2005/CourseHome/" rel="nofollow">http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Compute...</a><p>Learning about NP complete problems is interesting to avoid certain pitfalls and mapping one problem to another is always a valuable technique, but it seems you are fairly new to analysis of algorithms so imho (having been a phd student focused on algorithms) this book and course is a great place to start.<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-Creative-Approach-Udi-Manber/dp/0201120372" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-Creative-Approach-Udi-Manbe...</a><p>this is also very good
dangoldinalmost 17 years ago
If you are in the mood for something advanced, take a look at Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation by Hopcroft, Motwani, and Ullman.<p>It has a good amount of proofs and a pretty strong focus on automata thought so that may not be your cup of tea.<p>Hopcroft won the Turing award in 1986 so he knows what he's talking about.
fbellomialmost 17 years ago
I would suggest "Computational Complexity" by C.H. Papadimitriou<p>Great material, great exercises, very good bibliography
ulvundalmost 17 years ago
As others said: Introduction to the Theory of Computation, by Michael Sipser<p>Together with Shai Simonson's lectures:<p><a href="http://aduni.org/courses/theory/" rel="nofollow">http://aduni.org/courses/theory/</a>