Algorithm

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In mathematics, computing, linguistics, and related subjects, an algorithm is a finite sequence of instructions, an explicit, step-by-step procedure for solving a problem, often used for calculation and data processing. It is formally a type of effective method in which a list of well-defined instructions for completing a task, will when given an initial state, proceed through a well-defined series of successive states, eventually terminating in an end-state. The transition from one state to the next is not necessarily deterministic; some algorithms, known as probabilistic algorithms, incorporate randomness.

A partial formalization of the concept 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" (Kleene 1943:274) or "effective method" (Rosser 1939:225); 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.

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News tagged with algorithm

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First-ever calculation performed on optical quantum computer chip

First-ever calculation performed on optical quantum computer chip

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Sep 03, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (34) | comments 10

(PhysOrg.com) -- A primitive quantum computer that uses single particles of light (photons) whizzing through a silicon chip has performed its first mathematical calculation. This is the first time a calculation ...


Dwave processor

Google Collaborates with D-Wave on Possible Quantum Image Search

Physics / General Physics

created Dec 15, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (20) | comments 5

(PhysOrg.com) -- Always on the cutting edge of new computing technologies, Google has recently announced that it is investigating the use of quantum computing schemes to achieve faster image recognition rates. ...


Solving big problems

Solving big problems with new quantum algorithm

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Nov 09, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (32) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a recently published paper, Aram Harrow at the University of Bristol and colleagues from MIT in the United States have discovered a quantum algorithm that solves large problems much faster ...


Spacesuits with artificial intelligence may look for life on Mars

Spacesuits with artificial intelligence may look for life on Mars

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 04, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronauts may in future be wearing spacesuits equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) and digital eyes, turning them into what the researchers call cyborg astrobiologists.


Scene from Minority Report

Microsoft Researchers Developing Muscle-Based PC Interface (w/ Video)

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Oct 30, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (10) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- Microsoft researches have teamed up with the University of Washington and the University of Toronto to develop a muscle-controlled interface that allows for hands-free, gesture-driven interaction ...


The explainer: P vs. NP -- The most notorious problem in theoretical computer science remains open

P vs. NP -- The most notorious problem in theoretical computer science remains open

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Oct 29, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (22) | comments 5

In the 1995 Halloween episode of The Simpsons, Homer Simpson finds a portal to the mysterious Third Dimension behind a bookcase, and desperate to escape his in-laws, he plunges through. He finds himself wander ...


WPA-TKIP Encryption

WPA Wi-Fi Encryption Cracked In Sixty Seconds

Technology / Telecom

created Aug 28, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (9) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- Two Japanese computer scientists have developed a way to crack the WPA encryption between wireless routes and devices in 60 seconds.


Scientists create first electronic quantum processor

Scientists create first electronic quantum processor

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Jun 28, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (58) | comments 46

A team led by Yale University researchers has created the first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor, taking another step toward the ultimate dream of building a quantum computer.


Seeing beyond the invisible: Scientists find formula to uncover our planet’s past and help predict its future

Seeing beyond the invisible: Scientists find formula to uncover our planet’s past and help predict its future

Physics / General Physics

created May 27, 2009 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (6) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Studies of climate evolution and the ecology of past-times are often hampered by lost information - lost variables needed to complete the picture have been long thought untraceable but scientists ...


Researcher finds optimal fix-free codes

Researcher finds optimal fix-free codes

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Apr 03, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (21) | comments 5

(PhysOrg.com) -- More than 50 years after David Huffman developed Huffman coding, an entropy encoding algorithm used for lossless data compression in computer science and information theory, an electrical ...


Maybe robots dream of electric sheep, but can they do science?

Being Isaac Newton: Computer derives natural laws from raw data

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Apr 02, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (20) | comments 8

If Isaac Newton had access to a supercomputer, he'd have had it watch apples fall - and let it figure out the physical matters. But the computer would have needed to run an algorithm, just developed by Cornell ...


Relocation, relocation, relocation: Math could address climate change population concerns

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created Apr 01, 2009 | popularity 3.5 / 5 (8) | comments 1

As sea levels rise in the wake of climate change and semi-arid regions turn to desert, people living in those parts of the world are likely to be displaced. A mathematical approach to planned relocation reported in the International Jo ...


A new kind of counting: Scientists develop computer algorithm to solve previously unsolvable counting problems

A new kind of counting: Scientists develop computer algorithm to solve previously unsolvable counting problems

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created Feb 11, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (33) | comments 12

(PhysOrg.com) -- How many different sudokus are there? How many different ways are there to color in the countries on a map? And how do atoms behave in a solid? Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for ...


Low-cost strategy developed for curbing computer worms

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Jan 13, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (5) | comments 5

Thanks to an ingenious new strategy devised by researchers at University of California, Davis and Intel Corporation, computer network administrators might soon be able to mount effective, low-cost defenses against self-propagating ...


New tool enables powerful data analysis

New tool enables powerful data analysis

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Jan 08, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (18) | comments 4

(PhysOrg.com) -- A powerful computing tool that allows scientists to extract features and patterns from enormously large and complex sets of raw data has been developed by scientists at University of California, ...