In this first introductory class we will be discussing the basic concepts of Algorithms, including their different types (in summary) and examples of their applications in simple problems such as:
- Finding the largest common divisor of two integers
- Sorting a set of integers
- Calculating the Fibonacci series
- Estimating the square root of an integer with an exhaustive and a binary search approach
We will also discuss the differences between iterative and recursive processes and see how these may affect the running times of computer programs
In the end we will make an introduction to a number of simple biological problems to be discussed next.
Exercise #1
For your first exercise you need to write a program in the language of your choice that will:
a. Find the positive root of a given quadratic equation using a binary search strategy
b. Do the same with the use of the Newton-Raphson convergence method
c. Provide metrics for both approaches to judge which of the two is faster in number of iterations