Overview
Distributed Computing Through Combinatorial Topology describes techniques for analyzing distributed algorithms based on award-winning research. The authors present a solid theoretical foundation relevant to many real systems reliant on parallelism with unpredictable delays, such as multicore microprocessors, wireless networks, distributed systems, and Internet protocols. Today, a new student or researcher must assemble scattered conference publications, which are typically terse and commonly use different notations and terminologies. This book is a self-contained explanation of the mathematics for readers with computer science backgrounds. It also explains computer science concepts to readers with applied mathematics backgrounds. The first section presents mathematical notions and models, including message passing and shared-memory systems, failures, and timing models. The next section presents core concepts-first, proving a simple result that lends itself to examples and pictures and then generalizing the concept to prove a more sophisticated result. The overall result weaves together basic concepts, presenting them in an intuitively appealing way. The book's final section discusses advanced topics typically found in a graduate-level course.
