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The Beauty of Mathematics in Computer Science
The Beauty of Mathematics in Computer Science explains the mathematical fundamentals of information technology products and services we use every day, from Google Web Search to GPS Navigation, and from speech recognition to CDMA mobile services. The book was published in Chinese in 2011 and has sold more than 600,000 copies. Readers were surprised to find that many daily-used IT technologies were so tightly tied to mathematical principles. For example, the automatic classification of news articles uses the cosine law taught in high school.
The book covers many topics related to computer applications and applied mathematics including:
Natural language processing
Speech recognition and machine translation
Statistical language modeling
Quantitive measurement of information
Graph theory and web crawler
Pagerank for web search
Matrix operation and document classification
Mathematical background of big data
Neural networks and Google's deep learning
Jun Wu was a staff research scientist in Google who invented Google's Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Web Search Algorithms and was responsible for many Google machine learning projects. He wrote official blogs introducing Google technologies behind its products in very simple languages for Chinese Internet users from 2006-2010. The blogs had more than 2 million followers. Wu received PhD in computer science from Johns Hopkins University and has been working on speech recognition and natural language processing for more than 20 years. He was one of the earliest engineers of Google, managed many products of the company, and was awarded 19 US patents during his 10-year tenure there. Wu became a full-time VC investor and co-founded Amino Capital in Palo Alto in 2014 and is the author of eight books.
The book covers many topics related to computer applications and applied mathematics including:
Natural language processing
Speech recognition and machine translation
Statistical language modeling
Quantitive measurement of information
Graph theory and web crawler
Pagerank for web search
Matrix operation and document classification
Mathematical background of big data
Neural networks and Google's deep learning
Jun Wu was a staff research scientist in Google who invented Google's Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Web Search Algorithms and was responsible for many Google machine learning projects. He wrote official blogs introducing Google technologies behind its products in very simple languages for Chinese Internet users from 2006-2010. The blogs had more than 2 million followers. Wu received PhD in computer science from Johns Hopkins University and has been working on speech recognition and natural language processing for more than 20 years. He was one of the earliest engineers of Google, managed many products of the company, and was awarded 19 US patents during his 10-year tenure there. Wu became a full-time VC investor and co-founded Amino Capital in Palo Alto in 2014 and is the author of eight books.
284 pages, Hardcover
Published November 9, 2018
29 people are currently reading
171 people want to read
About the author
Jun Wu
1 book2 followersJun Wu
also 吴军
Jun Wu was a staff research scientist in Google who invented Google’s Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Web Search Algorithms and was responsible for many Google machine learning projects. He wrote official blogs introducing Google technologies behind its products in very simple languages for Chinese internet users from 2006-2010. The blogs had more than two million followers. He received Ph.D. in computer science from the Johns Hopkins University and had been working on speech recognition and natural language processing for more than 20 years. He was one of the earliest engineers of Google, managed many products of the company, and was awarded more than ten US patents during his ten-year tenure there. He became a full-time VC investor and co-founded Amino Capital in Palo Alto in 2014 and is the author of eight books.
吴军，著名学者，投资人，人工智能、语音识别和互联网搜索专家。毕业于清华大学和美国约翰·霍普金斯大学，现任丰元资本创始合伙人、上海交通大学客座教授、约翰·霍普金斯大学工学院董事等职。 吴军博士曾作为资深研究员和副总裁分别任职于Google公司和腾讯公司。在Google公司，他和同事一同开创了搜索反作弊研究领域，成立了中、日、韩文产品部门，设计了Google中、日、韩文搜索算法，领导了Google自然语言分析器、自动问答等研究型项目。在腾讯公司，他负责了搜索、搜索广告和街景地图等项目。作为风险投资人，他成功地投资了数十家硅谷和中国的高科技企业。 吴军博士著有《数学之美》《浪潮之巅》《大学之路》《文明之光》《硅谷之谜》和《智能时代》《见识》《态度》《具体生活》等多部畅销图书，并多次获得包括文津奖、中国好书奖、中华优秀出版物在内的国家级图书大奖。
also 吴军
Jun Wu was a staff research scientist in Google who invented Google’s Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Web Search Algorithms and was responsible for many Google machine learning projects. He wrote official blogs introducing Google technologies behind its products in very simple languages for Chinese internet users from 2006-2010. The blogs had more than two million followers. He received Ph.D. in computer science from the Johns Hopkins University and had been working on speech recognition and natural language processing for more than 20 years. He was one of the earliest engineers of Google, managed many products of the company, and was awarded more than ten US patents during his ten-year tenure there. He became a full-time VC investor and co-founded Amino Capital in Palo Alto in 2014 and is the author of eight books.
吴军，著名学者，投资人，人工智能、语音识别和互联网搜索专家。毕业于清华大学和美国约翰·霍普金斯大学，现任丰元资本创始合伙人、上海交通大学客座教授、约翰·霍普金斯大学工学院董事等职。 吴军博士曾作为资深研究员和副总裁分别任职于Google公司和腾讯公司。在Google公司，他和同事一同开创了搜索反作弊研究领域，成立了中、日、韩文产品部门，设计了Google中、日、韩文搜索算法，领导了Google自然语言分析器、自动问答等研究型项目。在腾讯公司，他负责了搜索、搜索广告和街景地图等项目。作为风险投资人，他成功地投资了数十家硅谷和中国的高科技企业。 吴军博士著有《数学之美》《浪潮之巅》《大学之路》《文明之光》《硅谷之谜》和《智能时代》《见识》《态度》《具体生活》等多部畅销图书，并多次获得包括文津奖、中国好书奖、中华优秀出版物在内的国家级图书大奖。
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 24, 2022
1. Who should read this?
This book is important for computer scientist, mathematicians, statisticians, software engineers.
Because, it gives an outline of mathematical tools one needs to grasp solve problems in technology industry.
2. What is inside?
One cannot know everything but one needs to have an outline of what mathematical tools might be needed in the future to solve a problem. The broad scope of the book is to give the reader, an understanding of mathematics in Modern Computing especially through Author’s experience as a Research Scientist in Google.
The Purpose of this book is not to go into details of hidden algorithms behind a product.
We could reformulate the above as, the purpose is to give a gentle introduction to mathematical theories intuitively behind products, rather than software documentation or algorithms.
I took this book to help me categorize mathematics and how one uses them in industry. The Book is well-written and stories intertwined behind products inspire you.
The Chapter on Andrew Viterbi was the best for me.
Outline:
1- Words, Languages, Numbers & Information
2-NLP: From Rules to Statistics
3- Statistical Language Model
4-Word Segmentation
5-Hidden Markov Model
6-Quantifying Information
7-Jelinek and Modern Language processing
8-Boolean Algebra and Search Engines
9-Graph theory and Web Crawlers
10-Page Rank: Google’s ranking technology
11- Relevance in Web Search
12-Finite state machines and Dynamic Programming,
Google Maps & Navigation
13-Google’s Designer Ak-47, Dr. Amit Signal
14-Cosine and News Classification
15-Solving classification problem in text processing with matrices
16-Information fingerprint and application
17-Mathematical principles of Cryptography
18-Search Engine’s problem: Anti-Spam, authoritativeness
19-Importance of Mathematical models
20-Don’t put all your eggs in one basked: Principle of Maximum Entropy
21-Mathematical Principles of Chinese input method editors
22-Bloom Filters
23-Bayesian Network: Extension of Markov Chain
24-Conditional random fields, syntactic parsing
25-Andrew Viterbi and Viterbi algorithm
26-God’s algorithm: Expectation max Algorithm
27-Logistic Regression and Web Search Advertisement
28-Google Brain and Artificial neural network
29: Power of Big Data
Deus Vult,
Gottfried
This book is important for computer scientist, mathematicians, statisticians, software engineers.
Because, it gives an outline of mathematical tools one needs to grasp solve problems in technology industry.
2. What is inside?
One cannot know everything but one needs to have an outline of what mathematical tools might be needed in the future to solve a problem. The broad scope of the book is to give the reader, an understanding of mathematics in Modern Computing especially through Author’s experience as a Research Scientist in Google.
The Purpose of this book is not to go into details of hidden algorithms behind a product.
We could reformulate the above as, the purpose is to give a gentle introduction to mathematical theories intuitively behind products, rather than software documentation or algorithms.
I took this book to help me categorize mathematics and how one uses them in industry. The Book is well-written and stories intertwined behind products inspire you.
The Chapter on Andrew Viterbi was the best for me.
Outline:
1- Words, Languages, Numbers & Information
2-NLP: From Rules to Statistics
3- Statistical Language Model
4-Word Segmentation
5-Hidden Markov Model
6-Quantifying Information
7-Jelinek and Modern Language processing
8-Boolean Algebra and Search Engines
9-Graph theory and Web Crawlers
10-Page Rank: Google’s ranking technology
11- Relevance in Web Search
12-Finite state machines and Dynamic Programming,
Google Maps & Navigation
13-Google’s Designer Ak-47, Dr. Amit Signal
14-Cosine and News Classification
15-Solving classification problem in text processing with matrices
16-Information fingerprint and application
17-Mathematical principles of Cryptography
18-Search Engine’s problem: Anti-Spam, authoritativeness
19-Importance of Mathematical models
20-Don’t put all your eggs in one basked: Principle of Maximum Entropy
21-Mathematical Principles of Chinese input method editors
22-Bloom Filters
23-Bayesian Network: Extension of Markov Chain
24-Conditional random fields, syntactic parsing
25-Andrew Viterbi and Viterbi algorithm
26-God’s algorithm: Expectation max Algorithm
27-Logistic Regression and Web Search Advertisement
28-Google Brain and Artificial neural network
29: Power of Big Data
Deus Vult,
Gottfried
June 3, 2020
I feel refreshed.
The Beauty of Mathematics in Computer Science (BMCS) paints hope on a canvas which I have feared is but thinly veiling a research landscape saturated with papers consisting of throwing together integrations of pieces of exiting models or perhaps not much more than a simple increase in model size or parameter count without sufficiently supported insights. On such a bleak landscape, BMCS brings to life stories of researchers in natural language processing (NLP) and related fields with succinct but insightful explanations of the underlying mathematics. To the layman, "machine learning" (ML) is a foreign term, the all-consuming monster lurking in the corner where only those who have aced their high school and college math classes may approach. BMCS demonstrates that "machine learning" is no more than 10 sheets of book-sized paper filled with pictures, rightfully standing up against those who would rather use nebulous terms to show off their intelligence rather than attempting an honest explanation to a peer.
By no means is BMCS is meant to substitute a deeper dive into any of its topics. In Wu's struggle against his various NDAs, he makes an honest attempt to teach the readers in the most approachable way possible. In this process, combating any growing elitism in the AI research industry, Wu identifies in his personal experiences with another established researcher, Jelinek, the largest factor of success in academia: personal motivation. To this end, Wu works to foster interest before mathematical depth, all while maintaining the same rigor one would expect from a formal class.
I can only envy Rachel Wu, the translator of the English version of this book, and a fellow teacher of an introduction to ML class at MIT, for growing up with such a knowledgeable father.
The Beauty of Mathematics in Computer Science (BMCS) paints hope on a canvas which I have feared is but thinly veiling a research landscape saturated with papers consisting of throwing together integrations of pieces of exiting models or perhaps not much more than a simple increase in model size or parameter count without sufficiently supported insights. On such a bleak landscape, BMCS brings to life stories of researchers in natural language processing (NLP) and related fields with succinct but insightful explanations of the underlying mathematics. To the layman, "machine learning" (ML) is a foreign term, the all-consuming monster lurking in the corner where only those who have aced their high school and college math classes may approach. BMCS demonstrates that "machine learning" is no more than 10 sheets of book-sized paper filled with pictures, rightfully standing up against those who would rather use nebulous terms to show off their intelligence rather than attempting an honest explanation to a peer.
By no means is BMCS is meant to substitute a deeper dive into any of its topics. In Wu's struggle against his various NDAs, he makes an honest attempt to teach the readers in the most approachable way possible. In this process, combating any growing elitism in the AI research industry, Wu identifies in his personal experiences with another established researcher, Jelinek, the largest factor of success in academia: personal motivation. To this end, Wu works to foster interest before mathematical depth, all while maintaining the same rigor one would expect from a formal class.
I can only envy Rachel Wu, the translator of the English version of this book, and a fellow teacher of an introduction to ML class at MIT, for growing up with such a knowledgeable father.
March 2, 2020
这本书叫做数学之美，也许一部分原因是处于与吴军另外一本书《浪潮之巅》的书名呼应之故，但可能被更多的还是营销需要。
吴军以其从业经验和工作内容涉及到的工程领域的各种项目背景为主题，探讨其背后的数学运用、数学模型，偶尔还会穿插一些人物背景知识。比起书中频繁出现的数学公式，我更喜欢他讲述那些公式出现的背景。
阅读本书，需要一定的数学门槛，应用知识，或者专业兴趣，正是因为这些前提条件，如果没遇到对的人，反而会和数学之美的题设背道而驰。
吴军以其从业经验和工作内容涉及到的工程领域的各种项目背景为主题，探讨其背后的数学运用、数学模型，偶尔还会穿插一些人物背景知识。比起书中频繁出现的数学公式，我更喜欢他讲述那些公式出现的背景。
阅读本书，需要一定的数学门槛，应用知识，或者专业兴趣，正是因为这些前提条件，如果没遇到对的人，反而会和数学之美的题设背道而驰。
May 27, 2018
引句作者的話，世界上最好的學者總是能深入淺出的把大道理講給外行聽，而不是故弄玄虛地把簡單的問題複雜化。讀完這本書如沐春風，站在巨人肩膀上看IT巨頭如何利用數學這個工具來實現許多生活上待解決的問題，十分值得專家、業餘和外行讀的一本好書。
August 22, 2021
NLP、信息论等的入门读物，对于不懂数学的人也许会比较有帮助。
April 22, 2024
读不懂，放下了
July 5, 2016
冲着一端据说从本书中摘录的关于神经网络的形象讲解来看这本书，结果没有看到。不过书本身还是不错。
October 20, 2016
没想到专业书可读性也这么强。其实本书组织就适合没有基础的业外人士和很有基础的业内人士。加上例子和具体的数学公式，即浅显又专业。个人数学不好，第一遍读完就第二遍好好补补专业知识。
January 3, 2022
This book's Chinese title is the beauty of math, which confuses the reader a bit. Rather, this is like an introductory material to natural language processing, a subarea in AI. Good for beginners.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews