Preface (first two pages)

This section sets the stage for the coming semester. After a brief bit of motivation (i.e. “algorithms are everywhere”), we are given the breakdown of how, when given a problem, to approach it. That approach is two-fold: breaking the problem down into it's true mathematical skeleton, and then proceeding to find algorithm design techniques that may be applied. Becoming comfortable with both of these parts will come through practice, experience, and time–all three of which we will be granted during the coming 11 weeks.

Next, we are given a brief overview of the book's structure. First, there is a stint of material which may be review or new. In this we will also find classic representative problems of certain techniques, which will the platform from which we dive deeper into the depths of both intractable NP-complete problem solutions and those that are efficient.

• As with any preface, there are a lot of things which seem vague and non-specific. But soon they will all surely become clear.

• I would say that this section was about a 6 on the readability scale (a lot of scattered sentence structuring), but a 9 on the interesting scale.