Search Engine Plumbing Revealed

August 19, 2008

Explaining search is a very difficult business. I want to recommend  “The Linear Algebra Behind Search Engines” by Amy Langville. The discussion was developed several years ago and is now available without charge on MathDL, a service of the Mathematical Association of America’s Digital Library. You can find the excellent write up here. Dr. Langville does include equations, something most publishers quickly delete from most books and reports about search and content processing. Useful comments and explanatory material set this essay apart. If you are interested in the inner workings of some of the search methods in use today, this is must read material. Two–yes, two–happy quacks to Dr. Langville and her excellent work. Now on the University of Charleston team, Dr. Langville has a Ph.D. in operations research from North Carolina State University.She is a recipient of the multi year CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. She has a new book about Google’s PageRank method in the works.

Stephen Arnold, August 19, 2008

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