I watched the video (but didn't take part in the class assignments) last spring, and I want to paraphrase an important remark by prof Sedgewick that really stru

I watched the video (but didn't take part in the class assignments) last spring, and I want to paraphrase an important remark by prof Sedgewick that really struck a chord in my mind: > Though we have faster computers, algorithms remain absolutely essential in our field, because the amount of data that we process is greater than ever before. It was nice to hear someone in a position of authority clearly explain why this field of research is important. It also helps understand why he prefers tilde notation to big-theta notation; the former takes into account the constant factor of the fastest growing term, thus allowing us to compare different implementations that are all O(n^2) in theory.