This is the co-author, with Garey, of that great 1979 book on NP-completeness, which begins with a really practical reason for knowing about such things: being

This is the co-author, with Garey, of that great 1979 book on NP-completeness, which begins with a really practical reason for knowing about such things: being able to prove to your boss that the problem you've been told to solve is at least as hard as some other problems that people smarter than you haven't figured out.