An accessible introduction to algorithms explaining not just what they are but how they work
with examples from a wide range of application areas. Digital technology runs on algorithms
sets of instructions that describe how to do something efficiently. Application areas range
from search engines to tournament scheduling DNA sequencing and machine learning. Arguing
that every educated person today needs to have some understanding of algorithms and what they
do in this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series Panos Louridas offers an
introduction to algorithms that is accessible to the nonspecialist reader. Louridas explains
not just what algorithms are but also how they work offering a wide range of examples and
keeping mathematics to a minimum. After discussing what an algorithm does and how its
effectiveness can be measured Louridas covers three of the most fundamental applications
areas: graphs which describe networks from eighteenth-century problems to today's social
networks searching and how to find the fastest way to search and sorting and the importance
of choosing the best algorithm for particular tasks. He then presents larger-scale
applications: PageRank Google's founding algorithm and neural networks and deep learning.
Finally Louridas describes how all algorithms are nothing more than simple moves with pen and
paper and how from such a humble foundation rise all their spectacular achievements.
