There's a whole subfield of computer science about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_computation

On the other hand, "All problems in computer science can be solved by another layer of indirection." (http://www.dmst.aueb.gr/dds/pubs/inbook/beautiful_code/html/...) So if that applies to this problem (after enough levels of indirection) then maybe I'm wrong.