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Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future

A reading series · John MacCormick

A chapter-a-day read-through of MacCormick's tour of the algorithms running quietly under everyday computing — my notes on each chapter, plus the part a 2011 book can't: where each algorithm class came from, and where it has gone since.

0 of 9 chapters written · a chapter a day.

  1. ·The read-through begins — foreword & introductionthe premise: profound algorithms hiding in plain sightread →
  2. 1Search-engine indexinginverted indexes → BM25 → dense vector search, neural IR, RAGplanned
  3. 2PageRankthe random surfer → learning-to-rank, graph ML, the SEO arms raceplanned
  4. 3Public-key cryptographyDiffie–Hellman & RSA → elliptic curves, TLS 1.3, post-quantum (Kyber/Dilithium)planned
  5. 4Error-correcting codesHamming & Reed–Solomon → LDPC and polar codes (5G), storage, quantumplanned
  6. 5Pattern recognitionnearest-neighbor & neural nets → deep learning, transformers, foundation modelsplanned
  7. 6Data compressionHuffman & LZ → arithmetic/ANS coding, Zstd/Brotli/AV1, learned compressionplanned
  8. 7Databasesthe relational model & ACID → NoSQL, CAP, distributed SQL, vector DBsplanned
  9. 8Digital signaturestrapdoors & trust → certificate authorities, PKI, code signing, hash-based schemesplanned
  10. 9What is computable?Turing & the halting problem → undecidability, P vs NP, the limits of all the aboveplanned