Non-Standard Computation

From the Publisher: There's never enough computer power for challenging questions. Problems such as the design of turbines consisting of more than 100 parts or the simulation of systems of some 50 interacting particles are far beyond today's computer capacities. Or, how to find the shortest phone line connecting 100 given cities? The most promising answers to such questions come from unconventional technologies. The massive parallelism of molecular computers or the ingenious use of quantum systems by universal quantum computers provide solutions to the dilemma. And as for the phone line problem - genetic algorithms mimick the way nature found its way from the first cells to today's creatures. While relying on conventional computer hardware, they introduce an element of chance on the software level, thus circumventing the disadvantages of traditional deterministic algorithms. A textbook for those shaping the future of computing, this volume is also pure fun.