Algorithm Characterizations - 2000 Berlinski's Characterization

2000 Berlinski's Characterization

While a student at Princeton in the mid-1960s, David Berlinski was a student of Alonzo Church (cf p. 160). His year-2000 book The Advent of the Algorithm: The 300-year Journey from an Idea to the Computer contains the following definition of algorithm:

"In the logician's voice:

"an algorithm is

a finite procedure,

written 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.'" (boldface and italics in the original, p. xviii)