Math, Engineering … and a Touch of Humor

Posted by Rob Knies

So, if you’re writing a book called On the Efficient Determination of Most Near Neighbors: Horseshoes, Hand Grenades, Web Search and Other Situations When Close is Close Enough, how exactly do you start?

You could start by providing an overview of the matter at hand. Or you could start with your own rich research history in the domain being discussed. Or you could just dive right into the discussion with a passage called Cumulative Distribution and Probability Density Functions.

But if you’re Mark Manasse,  principal researcher at Microsoft Research Silicon Valley, and you’re writing a book on the concept of most near neighbors, a book that combines mathematical and engineering principles in an effort to gather together the various research directions in his chosen field, you do all that—but first you lead with a joke.