Editing Theoretical computer science (section)

{{Short description|Subfield of computer science and mathematics}}
{{about|the branch of computer science and mathematics|the journal|Theoretical Computer Science (journal){{!}}''Theoretical Computer Science'' (journal)}}
{{Distinguish|Theory of computation}}
[[File:DFAexample.svg|thumb| 250px|A [[finite-state automaton]] from [[automata theory]], a branch of theoretical computer science]]
'''Theoretical computer science''' is a subfield of [[computer science]] and [[mathematics]] that focuses on the [[Abstraction|abstract]] and mathematical foundations of [[computation]].

It is difficult to circumscribe the theoretical areas precisely. The [[Association for Computing Machinery|ACM]]'s [[Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory]] (SIGACT) provides the following description:<ref>{{cite web | title =  SIGACT | url = https://www.sigact.org/ | access-date = 2017-01-19}}</ref>

{{"|TCS covers a wide variety of topics including [[algorithms]], [[data structure]]s, [[computational complexity theory|computational complexity]], [[parallel computation|parallel]] and [[distributed computation|distributed]] computation, [[probabilistic computation]], [[quantum computation]], [[automata theory]], [[information theory]], [[cryptography]], [[program semantics]] and [[Formal methods|verification]], [[algorithmic game theory]], [[machine learning]], [[computational biology]], [[computational economics]], [[computational geometry]], and [[computational number theory]] and [[Symbolic computation|algebra]]. Work in this field is often distinguished by its emphasis on mathematical technique and [[rigor#Mathematical rigour|rigor]].}}