I versus Algorithms
It started with a misadventure 2 years back, when driving back from dinner to our hotel in Ooty (hill station in Southern India), Google Maps led me to a dead-end in one of the narrow roads in the hill town. It was drizzling and dark. There was not enough road space to take a U-turn, so my wife got off the car and called for some help. I had to reverse my car downhill for about 20 minutes down 50 meters of the slope, with the valley on my left. With luck, patience and some generous assistance from the local resident, my car got back on the road; with offline guidance, we reached our hotel. The Maps experience left me intrigued; I tried to think of it more as a technology problem or, algorithms that power it, than with Google. Algorithms all around us Algorithms in simple terms are problem solving tools that run from aerospace, medical science, recommendations on most content to commerce sites, best candidates for a job fit to the Maps et al, with a pred...