I’m sure there are a lot of you out there who utterly get, in a second nature sort of way, how algorithms work. I, however, am not among them. I mean, I know that algorithms are ‘a way that computers sort information to figure things out,’ but that’s basically one step up from saying ‘magic.’ Lucky for me and the rest of the folks out there who don’t quite get the what an algorithm is, Harvard computer scientist David J. Malan is is here to narrate a TEDEd cartoon on the subject that will save us all from ignorance.
So by all means, watch and learn. Spolier alert: it turns out that you’re already making algorithms in your head, and they’re really not that complicated. It’s just hard to teach a computer to do them because computers are dumber than your brain. Hooray for your brain!
(via TEDEd)
- Carl Zimmer explains the wonder that is: feathers
- Here’s how a particle accelerator works, in case anyone asks
- The twin prime conjecture is probably a little more complex than a cartoon
