ezyang’s blog

the arc of software bends towards understanding

What high school Algebra quizzes and NP-complete problems have in common

What I did for my summer internship at Galois World of algebra quizzes. As a high schooler, I was using concepts from computer science long before I even knew what computer science was. I can recall taking a math quiz—calculators banned—facing a difficult task: the multiplication of large numbers. I was (and still am) very […]

  • August 16, 2010