Introduction:
I also intend to cover a collection of small but strange topics
in this course. The idea is that 75 minutes is a long time,
so at least once a week, toward the end of the period,
I'll introduce something that is not too hard but is strange or unusual.
Such weird topics might illustrate another justification for this course
on algorithms. Computer technology is constantly changing.
A future change could alter the playing field, requiring a new
analysis and new algorithms.
For example, in the mid- to late-1970s, a storage technology
know as bubble
memory came along. It was non-volatile, and "used
a thin film of a magnetic material to hold small magnetized areas,
known as bubbles or domains, each of which stored one bit of data....
In the early 1980s, however, bubble memory became a dead end
with the introduction of higher-density, faster, and cheaper
hard disk systems." If bubble memory had become commercial,
it would have required quite different algorithms and software
for its management. Radical new technology like this could
come at any time.
Examples of Weird Topics:
As a first example, suppose there was a way to transmit
information half-a-bit at a time. On the face of it,
this sounds impossible, laughably ridiculous. Everybody
knows that a bit is the fundamental and indivisible unit
of information. And yet maybe it could be done....
For another example, consider ROM memory, "ROM" for
"Read Only Memory." Everybody knows about this.
Suppose you had WOM memory. What? "Write Only Memory"?
You can write to it but you can't read it? What use
would that be?
These are just two "teaser" examples of weird topics.
A more thorough explanation of these two, along with
others, will be posted here as we cover them.
I intend for each new weird topic to be a surprise.
Links to Weird Topics:
These will be on the Calendar page.
Revision date:2012-05-25.
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the International Standard Date and Time Notation.)