The word algorithm has been used and heard a lot in the last few years. You may have heard the word algorithm many times on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Google, Yahoo. In that sense, you may think that this word is new.

Kathmandu. The word algorithm has been used and heard a lot in the last few years. You may have heard the word algorithm many times on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Google, Yahoo. In that sense, you may think that this word is new. 

However, the word algorithm is about 900 years old . The word comes from the name of a Persian mathematician, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi . He was born around 780 AD in what is now Uzbekistan.His name suggests that he came from Khwarezm, a large region in Central Asia that includes the present-day countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Known as al-Khwarizmi, he was the director of the House of Wisdom, an intellectual center in 9th-century Baghdad. It was a major center for scholars. He contributed to mathematics, astronomy, geography, and cartography. He also wrote an influential book called ‘ The Process of HinduThe book was discovered 300 years later and translated into Latin. This introduced the Hindu-Arabic numeral system to the West, which eventually replaced the complex Roman numeral system. 

Al-Khwarizmi described the Hindu-Arabic numeral system and the decimal point in his book. These two systems are the basis of the numerals used today around the world.

Al-Khwarizmi’s name, which when translated into Latin in the title of the book, became ‘Algorithm’. Algorithm is derived from this word. The word ‘algebra’ that we study in mathematics was also influenced by Al-Khwarizmi’s name and was used. 

His books revolutionized mathematics in the West. They showed that complex problems could be solved by breaking them down into simpler parts. In medieval Latin, the word “algorithm” simply referred to the decimal number system. It became an English word in the 13th century. The word ” algorithm ” was first used by the English poet and writer Geoffrey Chaucer in the 13th century. 

It was not until the 19th century that the word ‘algorithm’ was used to mean a set of step-by-step rules for solving a problem. That is, the word algorithm was not used to mean that a specific procedure or group of rules helped solve a problem. In the early 20th century, British mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing introduced the theory of how a machine could solve complex mathematics by following algorithmic instructions. This is considered to be the beginning of the computer age.

During World War II, he built a machine called ‘ Bomby ‘. It cracked the Enigma code using algorithms. Enigma code is an encrypted message produced by the Enigma machine. It was a secret device that was used by Nazi Germany during World War II, mainly to secure military communications.

Algorithm has become a common word now. Although sometimes you may not know exactly what an algorithm does. Algorithms are now used everywhere. Algorithms have played an important role in getting us from one destination to another, using internet searches, helping us with shopping, and providing us with the content we want on social media. 

Algorithms can also predict how we vote or who we love or like. This little word, which originated in medieval Persia, is gradually transforming our lives today.