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)
-
Read more about this topic: Algorithm Characterizations