Word: algorithmic
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Lozano-Perez has come up with an algorithm which allows a robot arm to carry out a pre-programmed series of tasks while avoiding obstacles which are placed in its way. He now is trying to come up with methods by which robots can "fiddle" with machine parts in order to make them...
...most powerful computers have had great difficulty juggling the bits and pieces of data. Now Narendra Karmarkar, a 28-year-old Indian-born mathematician at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., after only a year's work has cracked the puzzle of linear programming by devising a new algorithm, a step-by-step mathematical formula. He has translated the procedure into a program that should allow computers to track a greater combination of tasks than ever before and in a fraction of the time...
When the computer program be comes available to commercial users, American Airlines will be far from the only customer waiting in line. Bell Labs' parent company, AT&T, will probably employ the algorithm to route millions of telephone calls through hundreds of thousands of cities and towns more efficiently and profitably. Exxon has expressed interest in Karmarkar's program to help improve its allocation of supplies of crude oil among various refineries. For many large companies, says Graham, finding the best solution, as opposed to one that is merely workable, "can mean the difference between a good balance...
...nine digit number--the last in a century-old list of seemingly unfactorable numbers composed by a famous French mathematician--was broken down by a Cray supercomputer. The implications of this are revolutionary. While the breakdown of the number, more simply known as 2251-1, utilized only a sleek algorithm and no revolutionary advances, it signaled the ever-growing importance of ultra-sophisticated computers...
Unlike ordinary computers, the Cray can sample whole clusters of numbers simultaneously, like a sieve sifting through sand for coins. At Sandia, Simmons joined with his colleagues Mathematicians James Davis and Diane Holdridge to teach their own Cray how to factor. That involved developing an algorithm, or set of algebraic instructions, that would break the problem down into small steps. They succeeded admirably. In rapid succession they factored numbers of 58, 60, 63 and 67 digits. At this point, however, even the power of their Cray seemed to have reached its limit. But the Sandia team made one more...