Beschreibung:
John MacCormick is a leading researcher and teacher of computer science. He 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.
Foreword ix Chapter 1. Introduction: What Are the Extraordinary Ideas Computers Use Every Day? 1 Chapter 2. Search Engine Indexing: Finding Needles in the World's Biggest Haystack 10 Chapter 3. PageRank: The Technology That Launched Google 24 Chapter 4. Public Key Cryptography: Sending Secrets on a Postcard 38 Chapter 5. Error-Correcting Codes: Mistakes That Fix Themselves 60 Chapter 6. Pattern Recognition: Learning from Experience 80 Chapter 7. Data Compression: Something for Nothing 105 Chapter 8. Databases: The Quest for Consistency 122 Chapter 9. Digital Signatures: Who Really Wrote This Software? 149 Chapter 10. What Is Computable? 174 Chapter 11. Conclusion: More Genius at Your Fingertips? 199 Acknowledgments 205 Sources and Further Reading 207 Index 211
Reveals the ingenious ideas responsible for powering our PCs, laptops and smartphones.