#ExploreElul 9: Search

Today’s topic is Search and today’s post is from Robbie Berg M.D., Resident at Johns Hopkins and former Assistant Director at the URJ 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy East.

A huge challenge for computer programmers is interpreting search queries. When a user asks a question, how can the search engine find the right answer, when there are millions if not billions of possibilities? And as users, we all know how frustrating it can be to ask a question only to get irrelevant answers. 

During Elul we begin the process of introspection, asking ourselves questions about how we can be better people in the year to come. Each year, it might seem like we can't find the right answers, that our search algorithms are coming up with suboptimal responses. 

But perhaps more importantly we should be thinking... are we asking the right questions?