Books with author Martin Erwig

How Hansel and Gretel, Sherlock Holmes, the movie Groundhog Day, Harry Potter, and other familiar stories illustrate the concepts of computing.Picture a computer scientist, staring at a screen and clicking away frantically on a keyboard, hacking into a system, or perhaps developing an app. Now delete that picture. In Once Upon an Algorithm, Martin Erwig explains computation as something that takes place beyond electronic computers, and computer science as the study of systematic problem solving. Erwig points out that many daily activities involve problem solving. Getting up in the morning, for example: You get up, take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast. This simple daily routine solves a recurring problem through a series of well-defined steps. In computer science, such a routine is called an algorithm.Erwig illustrates a series of concepts in computing with examples from daily life and familiar stories. Hansel and Gretel, for example, execute an algorithm to get home from the forest. The movie Groundhog Day illustrates the problem of unsolvability; Sherlock Holmes manipulates data structures when solving a crime; the magic in Harry Potter's world is understood through types and abstraction; and Indiana Jones demonstrates the complexity of searching. Along the way, Erwig also discusses representations and different ways to organize data; “intractable” problems; language, syntax, and ambiguity; control structures, loops, and the halting problem; different forms of recursion; and rules for finding errors in algorithms.This engaging book explains computation accessibly and shows its relevance to daily life. Something to think about next time we execute the algorithm of getting up in the morning.

How Hansel and Gretel, Sherlock Holmes, the movie Groundhog Day, Harry Potter, and other familiar stories illustrate the concepts of computing.Picture a computer scientist, staring at a screen and clicking away frantically on a keyboard, hacking into a system, or perhaps developing an app. Now delete that picture. In Once Upon an Algorithm, Martin Erwig explains computation as something that takes place beyond electronic computers, and computer science as the study of systematic problem solving. Erwig points out that many daily activities involve problem solving. Getting up in the morning, for example: You get up, take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast. This simple daily routine solves a recurring problem through a series of well-defined steps. In computer science, such a routine is called an algorithm.Erwig illustrates a series of concepts in computing with examples from daily life and familiar stories. Hansel and Gretel, for example, execute an algorithm to get home from the forest. The movie Groundhog Day illustrates the problem of unsolvability; Sherlock Holmes manipulates data structures when solving a crime; the magic in Harry Potter's world is understood through types and abstraction; and Indiana Jones demonstrates the complexity of searching. Along the way, Erwig also discusses representations and different ways to organize data; “intractable” problems; language, syntax, and ambiguity; control structures, loops, and the halting problem; different forms of recursion; and rules for finding errors in algorithms.This engaging book explains computation accessibly and shows its relevance to daily life. Something to think about next time we execute the algorithm of getting up in the morning.

Strange things are so common in Crescent Hollow that no one questions them anymore, except for the special few at the Everhart Academy for Extraordinary Youth. Students falling asleep in the middle of class isn't unusual, but when their nightmares cross over from the dream world, SQUID goes into action. Having been years since the school had Seers of the Quite Unusual, the newbies face this dangerous disturbance with little to go on. They must discover who is behind the wave of nightmares and how to stop them before the real world and the dream world are one in the same. One thing they know for sure is that things from the dream world don't play by our rules.

Strange things are so common in Crescent Hollow that no one questions them anymore, except for the special few at the Everhart Academy for Extraordinary Youth. Students falling asleep in the middle of class isn’t unusual, but when their nightmares cross over from the dream world, SQUID goes into action. Having been years since the school had Seers of the Quite Unusual, the newbies face this dangerous disturbance with little to go on. They must discover who is behind the wave of nightmares and how to stop them before the real world and the dream world are one in the same. One thing they know for sure is that things from the dream world don’t play by our rules.

Cawnor, a young crow, leads a small group of friends fleeing their oppressive flock to the sea, where they attempt to find new lives. The crows take up residence in an estuary next to the beach. They make alliances with the other birds they meet, but making a home is not as easy. A hawk brings terror to the estuary. Storms and floods threaten their lives. And the leaders of their old flock want revenge. Cawnor must overcome all of these challenges so that he and his friends can be free.

Mike Olive returns to his North Carolina farming community with a group of fellow Duke University students to investigate the decline of tobacco farming and the use--and abuse--of Mexican farm workers, but his determination to rid his town of corruption and bigotry causes conflict among his neighbors, a situation that becomes complicated by his growing feelings for the daughter of one of his father's workers. A first novel.

The Klu-Klux-Clan has gone mad for the new existence of Muslims in Madrid and to erase all Muslim memorials in Spain.On the other hand, Majumum Morriskora is also awake. Moreover, the expected rise of the New Falcon of Spain. What is happening next,another change on the shores of Guadelquivor in the Baran Desert of Muslim Andalusia.Who will win in this fight? .....

Thirteen-year-old Dexter is forced to assume the throne of Pozzelby when his father, uncle, and brothers are assassinated while on a hunting trip. Dexter has to put aside his grief to try to unravel the conspiracy, while avoiding become the killer's next victim. Ultimately, the young king must outwit an ancient evil, long forgotten, in order to protect the people of Pozzelby.