Simply put, an algorithm is a set of instructions-it's the code that makes computers run. A basic idea that proved elusive for hundreds of years and bent the minds of the greatest thinkers in the world, the algorithm is what made the modern world possible. Without the algorithm, there would have been no computer, no Internet, no virtual reality, no e-mail, or any other technological advance that we rely on every day.
In The Advent of the Algorithm, David Berlinski combines science, history, and math to explain and explore the intriguing story of how the algorithm was finally discovered by a succession of mathematicians and logicians, and how this paved the way for the digital age. Beginning with Leibniz and culminating in the middle of the twentieth century with the groundbreaking work of Goedel and Turing, The Advent of the Algorithm is an epic tale told with clarity and imaginative brilliance.
- ISBN10 0156013916
- ISBN13 9780156013918
- Publish Date 3 May 2001 (first published 31 March 2000)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Cengage Learning, Inc
- Imprint Wadsworth Publishing Co Inc
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 368
- Language English