Puzzles and paradoxes for Algorithmic thinking
Abstract:
Algorithmic thinking is a specialized way of thinking about problem solving by using a computer.
While mathematical thinking is the starting point for any meaningful problem solving, algorithmic
thinking differs from it is several subtle ways. There are several interesting ways to understand
the subtilities and puzzles and paradoxes are among key strategies for obtaining right insight.
Puzzles and paradoxes have the appeal that it can be discussed without any specialized knowledge of
any of the mathematical branches such as number theory or graph theory and yet will slowly take you
to the depths of understanding deeper mathematics. Hence this style of discussions. The pre
requisites are pen, paper and enthusiasm and perhaps a bit lighter lunch!!!!!!
Speaker Bio
Prof. Chandrasekaran Pandu Rangan is a visiting chair professor at Kotak IISc AI-ML Center. He
obtained his Master’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Madras, Chennai and Doctorate
degree from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. He joined the faculty of Computer Science
and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras in 1982. He has served as a
distinguished Visiting Professor at the Information and Communications University, Deajon, South
Korea. He joined the rank of Professors in 1995 and served as Head of Department from 1998–2001. He
was a member of the founding team for IIT Hyderabad (IITH) and served as Inaugural Chair to set up
the computer science department at IITH (2008–2011). He has upgraded the unit of the Indian
Statistical Institute (ISI) in Chennai to a Centre and served as Inaugural Chair for the ISI,
Chennai Centre. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) from 2006. He
was honoured as Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman Chair Professor in 2017. He served at IITM
until his retirement and superannuated in 2021. Since August 2021, he served at IISc, in the
Department of Computer Science and Automation as Sathish Dhawan Visiting Chair Professor. Pandu
Rangan also served in the Board of Directors of the International Association of Cryptology Research
(IACR), USA and in the Board of Directors of the Society for Electronic Transactions and Security
(SETS), Chennai. He was also on the editorial board of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS)
series published by Springer Verlag, Germany. He has developed special outreach programme-related
lecture series and customised competency building lecture series at TCS, INFOSYS, IBM Research,
Tokyo, Japan, SAMSUNG R&D, Seoul, South Korea. During his forty year-long academic life, he has
taken special interest in promoting undergraduate research and many of his mentee are in top
positions in academia and industry. He has pioneered the research in multiparty computation in India
and emerged as the fourth most prolific researcher in the world among the ACM PODC community around
2015 (and first in India). Recently, just begore his retirement from IITM, he has initiated the
research in blockchain technology at the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, IITM. His
areas of interest include technology enhanced learning, algorithms, cryptology, discrete
mathematics, puzzle based learning, and algorithmic thinking.