Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers
Author : John MacCormick
Publisher : Princeton University Press (September 15, 2020)
Language : English
Pages : 232
1) Book Description
Every day, we use our computers to perform remarkable feats. A simple web search picks out a handful of relevant needles from the world's biggest haystack. Uploading a photo to Facebook transmits millions of pieces of information over numerous error-prone network links, yet somehow a perfect copy of the photo arrives intact. Without even knowing it, we use public-key cryptography to transmit secret information like credit card numbers, and we use digital signatures to verify the identity of the websites we visit. How do our computers perform these tasks with such ease? John MacCormick answers this question in language anyone can understand, using vivid examples to explain the fundamental tricks behind nine computer algorithms that power our PCs, tablets, and smartphones.
2) About Author
John MacCormick is a computer science teacher, author, and researcher. He grew up in New Zealand, studied mathematics and computer science in England, and now lives in Pennsylvania, USA. MacCormick has a PhD in computer vision from the University of Oxford, has worked in the research labs of Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, and is currently a professor of computer science at Dickinson College. His work spans several sub-fields of computer science, including computer vision, large-scale distributed systems, computer science education, and the public understanding of computer science.