One-Way Algorithm: A function where it’s computationally easy to calculate the output from the input, but computationally infeasible to calculate the input from the output.
Analogy: It’s like mixing two colors of paint to get a new color; it’s easy to mix but extremely difficult to separate them back to the original colors.
Why It Matters: One-way functions are widely used in cryptography, particularly in hashing algorithms and certain encryption schemes.