Chapter 0: Automata

One of the topics I'd picked up in my Principles of Programming Languages lecture was the concept of automata, mathematical obejcts that form the basis of formal language theory. In particular I was fascinated by graphical representations of these objects and their ticker-tape output; that fascination would grow into a love of abstract mathematics that earned me a minor in the subject.

Also around this time, I'd discovered Oliver Byrne's rendition of Euclid's Elements which used colored diagrams, symbols, and small inline shapes rather than rote variables and traditional math typesetting. It's a beautiful work. It led to me discovering and experimenting heavily with LaTeX, a compiled mathematical typesetting language. It was my way of retaining information during lecture and recitation: by making it beautiful.

While some pages were scattered in various cloud storage services, most of the original work and all LaTeX is lost to time.