Today's Word "algorithm"
Published in Vocabulary
algorithm \AL-guh-RITH-uhm\ (noun) - A step-by-step procedure for solving a problem in a finite number of steps that often involves repetition of an operation.
"The plan was for Congress to pass legislation that made the new algorithm the nation's standard, thus alleviating the incompatibilities now suffered by corporations that used different algorithms" -- Dan Brown, 'Digital Fortress'
Algorithm is an alteration of algorism, possibly influenced by arithmetic. It comes to us from the Arabic name of a ninth century Persian mathematician and textbook author, via Old French and Medieval Latin: Muhammad ibn-Musa al-Khwarizmi was from the Khwarizm region, an area south of the Aral Sea. Al-Khwarizmi wrote a book titled Kitab al jabr wa'l-muqabala ("Rules of restoring and equating") which is the source of the word algebra.
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