Algorithms

Question 1

equation

Answer 1

mathematical statement using symbols to show how two things are equal.

how exactly do those computers work? The answer is that they all use algorithms – sets of mathematical instructions which find solutions to problems.
Although they are often hidden, algorithms are all around us. From mobile phone maps to home delivery pizza, they play a big part of modern life.
A simple way to think of algorithms is as recipes. To make pancakes you mix flour, eggs and milk, then melt butter in a frying pan and so on. Computers do this in more a complicated way by repeating mathematical equations over and over again

Question 2

bogyman

Answer 2

someone that people called bad or evil in order to make other people afraid.

With all this talk of computers, you might think algorithms are a new idea. In fact, they’ve been around since Babylonian times, around 4,000 years ago.

My understanding of the term ‘algorithm’ is that it’s not necessarily the bogyman, or its not necessarily something that is, you know, inscrutable or mysterious to all people – it’s the set of instructions that you write in some mathematical form or in some software code –…

Professor Srinivasan thinks algorithms are neither evil nor inscrutable …

Question 3

efficient

Answer 3

working quickly and effectively in an organised way.

It’s autumn and we want to collect all the apples from our orchard and divide them into three groups – big, medium and small. One method is to collect all the apples together and compare their sizes. But doing this would take hours! It’s much easier to first collect the apples from only one tree - divide those into big, medium or small – and then repeat the process for the other trees, one by one.
That’s basically what algorithms do – they find the most efficient way to get things done,

Question 4

inscrutable

Answer 4

not showing emotions or thoughts and therefore very difficult to know.

My understanding of the term ‘algorithm’ is that it’s not necessarily the bogyman, or its not necessarily something that is, you know, inscrutable or mysterious to all people …
Professor Srinivasan thinks algorithms are neither evil nor inscrutable

Question 5

sort

Answer 5

group things which share similarities together.

Think of when your computer is sorting emails by date and maybe you’ve got 500 emails and it sorts them by date in a flash. Now it doesn’t use bubble sort, but it does use a sorting method and if you tried to do that by hand it would take you a very long time, whatever method you used.

Question 6

in a flash

Answer 6

quickly or suddenly.

Think of when your computer is sorting emails by date and maybe you’ve got 500 emails and it sorts them by date in a flash. Now it doesn’t use bubble sort, but it does use a sorting method and if you tried to do that by hand it would take you a very long time, whatever method you used.

Sam
Just like grouping the apples by size, sorting hundreds of emails by hand would take a long time. But using algorithms, computers do it in a flash– very quickly or suddenly.