Regular Algebra and Finite Machines

by John H. Conway

World-famous mathematician John H. Conway based this classic text on a 1966 course he taught at Cambridge University. Geared toward graduate students of mathematics, it will also prove a valuable guide to researchers and professional mathematicians.
His topics cover Moore's theory of experiments, Kleene's theory of regular events and expressions, Kleene algebras, the differential calculus of events, factors and the factor matrix, and the theory of operators. Additional subjects include event classes and operator classes, some regulator algebras, context-free languages, communicative regular algebra, axiomatic questions, the strength of classical axioms, and logical problems. Complete solutions to problems appear at the end.

Genres: Mathematics

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

John Horton Conway, often credited as John H. Conway, was a Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, known for inventing the "Game of Life."

Reviews

[Tim Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mathematically sound, but not much use to someone who is actually writing a compiler. His idea that context free languages are better studied as infinite unions of regular expressions is ridiculous. Equally pointless is his idea of an infinite state machine. The example he uses is a language that CAN be written as a single regular expression, which is certainly NOT the case in general.