Algorithms in ancient times When you think of algorithms, you’re probably thinking of Wall Street supercomputers whizzing around making thousands of calculations and transactions in a fraction of a second or social media companies monitoring your every click and comment, targeting you with ads and polarizing content. The concept of an algorithm however, has been in use by humans for thousands of years in various forms such as instructions for performing tasks, solving problems and making decisions. Ancient civilizations, such as the Greeks and the Babylonians, have used algorithms in their mathematical and construction practices. Euclid, a Greek mathematician, described the Euclidean algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of […]
