Chapter Five—Sorting
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
— NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI, The Prince (1513)
“But you can’t look up all those license numbers in time,” Drake objected.“We don’t have to, Paul. We merely arrange a list and look for duplications.”
— PERRY MASON, in The Case of the Angry Mourner (1951)
“Treesort” Computer—With this new ‘computer-approach’ to nature study you can quickly identify over 260 different trees of U.S., Alaska, and Canada, even palms, desert trees, and other exotics.To sort, you simply insert the needle.
— EDMUND SCIENTIFIC COMPANY, Catalog (1964)
IN THIS CHAPTER we shall study ...
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