Algorithm

A finite, unambiguous recipe for solving a class of problems — the concept that gives computer science its procedures.

Core Principles & Analysis

• The word latinizes al-Khwarizmi, the 9th-century Baghdad mathematician.
• Turing's 1936 machines gave the idea its formal definition of computability.
• Euclid's gcd algorithm from 300 BC still runs, essentially unchanged, in modern libraries.