Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

Computer science has developed a shorthand specifically for measuring algorithmic worst-case scenarios: it’s called “Big-O” notation. Big-O notation has a particular quirk, which is that it’s inexact by design.

In fact, for any possible drawing of w winning tickets in n attempts, the expectation is simply the number of wins plus one, divided by the number of attempts plus two: (w+1)⁄(n+2).

exploration necessarily leads to being let down on most occasions.

one of the most central tradeoffs is between sorting and searching. The

There are a number of domains in the natural world, too, where events are completely independent from one another and the intervals between them thus fall on an Erlang curve.

Lasso and uses as its penalty the total weight of the different factors in the model.*

improve decisions about where to eat or what to listen to. It also provides fundamental insights into how our goals should change as we age, and why the most rational course of action isn’t always trying to choose the best.

exploit geography. Make sure things are in whatever cache is closest to the place where they’re typically used.

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. —LAO TZU