1. The Algorithm College of Alameda Copyright © 2006 Patrick McDermott pmcdermott@peralta.edu al-Khwārizmī 9 th Century Islamic astronomer & mathematician al jabr: Algebra

2. The King of Hearts  Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.  —K♥ The King of Hearts in Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

3. An Algorithm is A finite procedure, written (or could be) in a fixed symbolic vocabulary, governed by precise instructions, moving in discrete steps, 1, 2, 3…, whose execution requires no insight, cleverness, intuition, intelligence, or perspicuity, and that sooner or later comes to an end. Berlinski, David, The Advent of the Algorithm: The Idea that Rules the World, New York: Harcourt (0-15-100338-6), 2000, p. xviv. Artist Drawing a Lute with the Help of a Mechanical Device Albrecht Dürer, c. 1525 The Entscheidungsproblem Given a description of a program and a finite input, decide whether the program finishes running or will run forever, given that input.

4. How to Get Rich J. Paul Getty’s secret: The Sure-fire way to get Rich !

5. Some Algorithms The Great Google {Secret} Search Algorithm Long Division Linear Programming Sorting McDonald’s Recipe –But not Julia Childs’ Bake a Cake –From a Package –But NOT “from scratch” –Cake can lead to a Long Life!

6. How To Live a Long Life!

7. Bubble Sort Look at each item in turn If the next item is less, swap them Keep doing it until they are in order A L T T A L T L A 012 A L T

8. What’s Goodness? Donald Knuth The Art of Computer Programming –Not Science 1.Finite 2.Definite 3.Input 4.Output 5.Effective  Efficient Processing Memory Storage  Easy to Code  Easy to Maintain Robust Understandable MACHINE HUMAN

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