Timeline for What is the earliest instance of the use of an algorithm to solve problems?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 31, 2022 at 22:22 | comment | added | Mark | This really depends on how you define "well-defined". Modern mathematicians would say that the concept of an algorithm was formalized in the 1930s, so no well-defined algorithm could have existed before then. | |
| S Jul 6, 2020 at 15:39 | history | suggested | Rodrigo de Azevedo |
Added tag.
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| Jul 6, 2020 at 10:13 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jul 6, 2020 at 15:39 | |||||
| Feb 26, 2019 at 10:59 | comment | added | Dave L Renfro | I would be willing to bet that someone with absolutely no knowledge of our use of written symbols and other modern methods of conveying "unambiguous steps" would not even perform it approximately to a farmer. I think a significant problem is asking such a question in a way that isn't highly biased to recent times. Useful reading: Historiographic vices I. Logical attribution and Historiographic vices II. Priority chasing (especially "II"), both from 1975 by Kenneth O. May. | |
| Feb 25, 2019 at 22:34 | comment | added | forest | @CarlWitthoft Have those ever been formally defined in a series of unambiguous steps such that a person with absolutely no knowledge of what seeds, water, or harvesting are could perform it identically to a farmer? Simply giving instructions is not sufficient to warrant using the term algorithm. | |
| Feb 25, 2019 at 12:50 | review | Close votes | |||
| Mar 3, 2019 at 3:05 | |||||
| Feb 25, 2019 at 12:34 | comment | added | Carl Witthoft | I agree with the camp that says any defined series of steps qualifies as an algorithm. So at least as far back as agriculture (plant seed, water field, harvest food), there were algorithms. | |
| Feb 24, 2019 at 8:58 | comment | added | Dave L Renfro | @terdon: "The algorithm for drinking water" --- I was thinking (before reading your similar comment) of things like directions (obviously given verbally a long time ago) for travelling from one place to another several-days-journey place, where one needs to avoid dangerous predator watering spots and known human enemy dwellings, and having places where creeks and berry bushes are (i.e. water and food sources), etc. | |
| Feb 24, 2019 at 3:35 | comment | added | forest | @terdon If someone has written explicit and deterministic step-by-step instructions for solving the problem of drinking water such that a person who does not know how to drink water could follow it and succeed in drinking, I would consider that a legitimate (if silly) instance of an algorithm. | |
| Feb 23, 2019 at 22:41 | answer | added | Gerald Edgar | timeline score: 4 | |
| Feb 23, 2019 at 22:34 | comment | added | Gerald Edgar | I think the quote "this notion of an algorithm" refers to an algorithm using randomization as mentioned just before. This is what is at best 40-50 years old. Not algorithms in general. | |
| Feb 23, 2019 at 22:01 | comment | added | user48953094 | I remember small Carl Friedrich Gauss story calculating huge sums by a smart trick/algorithm and would suppose the first kind of algorithm was related to addition, as all other kind of mathematical operations can be based on addition. And mathematics started with counting and we know some animals can also count, so humans are the only ones that develop and apply mathematical algorithms to my knowledge. (Maybe interesting to ask on biology.se, but I would be surprised if problem solving strategies applied by sma | |
| Feb 23, 2019 at 21:42 | history | migrated | from history.stackexchange.com (revisions) | ||
| Feb 23, 2019 at 14:52 | comment | added | terdon | If you don't limit it to mathematics, algorithms are as old as life. The algorithm for drinking water (approach pool, open mouth, apply suction, swallow) for example. You might want to use a stricter definition of algorithm. | |
| Feb 23, 2019 at 14:29 | comment | added | Alexandre Eremenko | The concept of algorithm is as old as mathematics itself. Ancient Babylonian mathematics consisted mainly of algorithms. This was even before the discovery of proofs. | |
| Feb 23, 2019 at 9:04 | comment | added | Denis de Bernardy | Egyptians seem to have figured out the multiplication algorithm c 1700-2000 BCE ago. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_algorithms | |
| Feb 23, 2019 at 8:09 | comment | added | forest | @JohnDvorak The Euclidean algorithm was described in 300 BCE. | |
| Feb 23, 2019 at 8:08 | comment | added | John Dvorak | The Babylonian method of computing square roots dates back to 60 AD, but I'd expect some stuff to be older still | |
| Feb 23, 2019 at 7:58 | history | asked | forest | CC BY-SA 4.0 |