Word History Time! – Learn About the Word: Algorithm
Word History Time! 
– Algorithm: – Quote from Word Histories and Mysteries from the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries: – “Because of its popularity over the last century, one might figure algorithm for a new coinage. The source of algorithm, however, is not Silicon Valley, but Khwarizm, a region near the Aral Sea in south-central Asia and the birthplace of the 9th century Persian manthematician, Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khwarizmi (780-850?). Al-khwarizmi, “the  Khwarizmian,” who later lived near Baghdad, is perhaps most important to us because Arabic numerals becaem generally known in Europe through a translation of his work on algebra. He also wrote a treatise on algorism, the Arabic or decimal system of numeration, in which he was the first to discuss these numerals. Algorism, named after him, gave rise to the variant spelling algorithm, probably influenced by the word arithmetic or its Greek source arithmos, “number.” With the development of sophisticated mechanical computing devices in the 20th centry, algorithm was adopted as a convenient word for a recursive mathematical procedure, the computer’s stock-in-trade. In its new life as a computer term, algorithm, no longer a variant of algorism, nevertheless reminds us of the debt that modern technology owes to the scientists and scholars of ancient and medieval times.”
Now today many people who are hip to web technology hear the word algorithm in terms of computer programming issues where the term is commonly used to discuss Google’s “spiders” which crawl the web and determine which websites receive special treatment with placement on first pages of search engine results queries. The “algorithms” people are discussing are generally what they are thinking of as the basic coding/programming to make those “spiders” that are crawling the web tick…and “algorithm” changes discussed are often the factors influencing the different results people are seeing when they are searching for a product or service online. This is basically just discussing the things people more often think of today when they hear the word ALGORITHM.
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