Time, Hardware, and Uniformity [chapter]

David Mix Barrington, Neil Immerman
1997 Complexity Theory Retrospective II  
We describe three orthogonal complexity measures: parallel time, amount of hardware, and degree of non-uniformity, which together parametrize most complexity classes. We s h o w that the descriptive complexity framework neatly captures these measures using three parameters: quanti er depth, number of variables, and type of numeric predicates, respectively. A fairly simple picture arises in which the basic questions in complexity theory | solved and unsolved | can be understood as questions about tradeo s among these three dimensions.
doi:10.1007/978-1-4612-1872-2_1 fatcat:sbpijo2dojhyvbwokdmjazlnue