Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. CONTENTS vii
3. Foreword ix
4. 1. Introduction: What Are the Extraordinary Ideas Computers Use Every Day? 1
5. 2. Search Engine Indexing: Finding Needles in the World’s Biggest Haystack 10
6. 3. PageRank: The Technology That Launched Google 24
7. 4. Public Key Cryptography: Sending Secrets on a Postcard 38
8. 5. Error-Correcting Codes: Mistakes That Fix Themselves 60
9. 6. Pattern Recognition: Learning from Experience 80
10. 7. Data Compression: Something for Nothing 105
11. 8. Databases: The Quest for Consistency 122
12. 9. Digital Signatures: Who Really Wrote This Software? 149
13. 10. What Is Computable? 174
14. 11. Conclusion: More Genius at Your Fingertips? 199
15. Acknowledgments 205
16. Sources and Further Reading 207
17. Index 211