En matemáticas, lógica, ciencias de la computación y disciplinas relacionadas, un algoritmo (del griego y latín, dixit algorithmus y éste a su vez del matemático persa Al-Juarismi) es un conjunto prescrito de instrucciones o reglas bien definidas, ordenadas y finitas que permite llevar a cabo una actividad mediante pasos sucesivos que no generen dudas a quien deba hacer dicha actividad. Dados un estado inicial y una entrada, siguiendo los pasos sucesivos se llega a un estado final y se obtiene una solución. Los algoritmos son el objeto de estudio de la algoritmia. En la vida cotidiana, se emplean algoritmos frecuentemente para resolver problemas. Algunos ejemplos son los manuales de usuario, que muestran algoritmos para usar un aparato, o las instrucciones que recibe un trabajador por parte de su patrón. Algunos ejemplos en matemática son el algoritmo de multiplicación, para calcular el producto, el algoritmo de la división para calcular el cociente de dos números, el algoritmo de Euclides para obtener el máximo común divisor de dos enteros positivos, o el método de Gauss para resolver un sistema de ecuaciones lineales.

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what is algorithm: "A process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer". In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm (/ˈælɡərɪðəm/ AL-gə-ri-dhəm) is a self-contained step-by-step set of operations to be performed. Algorithms perform calculation, data processing, and/or automated reasoning tasks. The English word 'algorithm' comes from Medieval Latin word algorism and the Greek word "arithmos" (ἀριθμός). The word 'algorism' (and therefore, the derived word 'algorithm') comes from Al-Khwārizmī (Persian: خوارزمی‎‎, c. 780–850), a Persian mathematician, astronomer, geographer, and scholar. English adopted the French term, but it wasn't until the late 19th century that "algorithm" took on the meaning that it has in modern English. In English, it was first used about 1230 and then by Chaucer in 1391. Another early use of the word is from 1240, in a manual titled Carmen de Algorismo composed by Alexandre de Villedieu. It begins thus: Haec algorismus ars praesens dicitur, in qua / Talibus Indorum fruimur bis quinque figuris. which translates as: Algorism is the art by which at present we use those Indian figures, which number two times five. The poem is not very long, only a few hundred lines, and summarizes the art of calculating with the new style of Indian dice, or Talibus Indorum, or Hindu numerals or al-adad al-Hindi An algorithm is an effective method that can be expressed within a finite amount of space and time and in a well-defined formal language for calculating a function. Starting from an initial state and initial input (perhaps empty), the instructions describe a computation that, when executed, proceeds through a finite number of well-defined successive states, eventually producing "output" and terminating at a final ending state. The transition from one state to the next is not necessarily deterministic; some algorithms, known as randomized algorithms, incorporate random input. The concept of algorithm has existed for centuries; however, a partial formalization of what would become the modern algorithm began with attempts to solve the Entscheidungsproblem (the "decision problem") posed by David Hilbert in 1928. Subsequent formalizations were framed as attempts to define "effective calculability" or "effective method"; those formalizations included the Gödel–Herbrand–Kleene recursive functions of 1930, 1934 and 1935, Alonzo Church's lambda calculus of 1936, Emil Post's "Formulation 1" of 1936, and Alan Turing's Turing machines of 1936–7 and 1939. Giving a formal definition of algorithms, corresponding to the intuitive notion, remains a challenging problem.

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