What is an Algorithm?

An algorithm is just a set of very detailed instructions explaining how to perform a certain task step by step.

For example, if you explain to someone how to add two fractions, then you are providing him or her with an algorithm.

To give your computer an algorithm, you first need to write a program in some Computer Language (like Fortran, or Cobol, or C, or whatever language you prefer). Then, when you execute your program, your computer will do whatever the algorithm told it to do.

The word algorithm comes from the name of the person who wrote the first book on Algebra around 820 AD in Baghdad: محمد بن موسى خوارزمی (Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī).