the.com/computation
Turning questions into steps small enough that even a rock can answer them.
means The process of working out an answer by following a set of defined steps, whether by mind, mechanism, or machine.
from From Latin computare — com- ('together') plus putare ('to reckon, to settle an account, to prune or clear up'). Putare's older sense was literally about cleaning up a ledger or a tree; reckoning sums grew out of that notion of tidying things into clarity. The word passed through French into English by the 1600s, first for human 'computers' — people hired to crunch numbers by hand — long before it migrated to the machines that stole their job title.
- literal root
- from latin computare, to reckon together
- minimum hardware
- can be done with rocks, water, or dominoes
- universal limit
- some true statements are provably uncomputable
- hidden cost
- every computation generates heat, no exceptions