Algorithms in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

While very few intellectual achievements cannot be traced back to important predecessors, many come to be implanted in the historical public consciousness through the efforts of one man, who is then acclaimed as the person responsible for that achievement. So it was in the case of Al-Khwarazmi, who is credited with having introduced algorithms into arithmetic and algebra, although full-fledged algorithms, for example, for prime factorization, are given by Euclid, who wrote eleven centuries before Al-Khwarazmi.