¿The book is outstanding and admirable in many respects. ... is necessary reading for all kinds of readers from undergraduate students to top authorities in the field.¿ Journal of Symbolic Logic Written by two experts in the field, this is the only comprehensive and unified treatment of the central ideas and applications of Kolmogorov complexity. The book presents a thorough treatment of the subject with a wide range of illustrative applications. Such applications include the randomness of finite objects or infinite sequences, Martin-Loef tests for randomness, information theory, computational learning theory, the complexity of algorithms, and the thermodynamics of computing. It will be ideal for advanced