Efficient Pairing Functions—and Why You Should Care (Extended Abstract)
Arnold L. Rosenberg · 2002
This paper provides a short tour through the world of pairing functions—bijections between N N and N—as models for computational “situations.” After a short discussion of the computationally simplest pairing functions— the Cauchy-Cantor “diagonal” polynomials—we describe two specific computational situations in some detail: the use of pairing functions as storage mappings for rectangular arrays/tables that can expand and shrink dynamically; the use of pairing functions as the basis for a mechanism for instilling accountability into Web-computing projects.