Algorithms everywhere!
The idea of algorithms has been creeping up all over the place for me. My initial reaction to the word was, “Big Scary word that only really smart math people use”. But wait a minute! Didn’t I just write a post about how we’re all intelligent, and can develop ourselves in any area of intelligence that we desire? Since I’m learning about math and writing a math blog, and since you’re learning about math and reading a math blog, aren’t we really smart math people too? Maybe it’s time for us to start using the word.
One of the first places I read algorithm was in this post, where I discussed Sheila Tobias’s book Overcoming Math Anxiety. In it, she talked about a study where adults were given a math problem and told not to tell their answer but to tell how they got their answer. Different people came up with different methods of getting the answer, and were assured that, “the systems they were using were legitimate algorithms”. She then defines algorithms as “just a system for getting an answer”.
Then, I came across the word while visiting this website. He tells about a website, www.genderanalyzer.com, that uses an algorithm to tell if a website is written by a male or female. (I tried typing in my url at gender analyzer, and it correctly said that I was female.)
In my next post, I will write about my experience with a Rubik’s Cube. I will share now, though, the youtube where I first heard algorithm in regards to solving a rubik’s cube. In this video, he says, “Now in learning how to solve it, you have to learn what are called algorithms. While it sounds fancy and complicated and nerdy, it’s really not all that fancy. An algorithm is any sequence that when repeated enough times, the cube returns to its original position”.
December 11th, 2008 at 3:51 am
The way I’ve explained it to kids is that an algorithm is like a recipie. It’s a systematic sequence of steps that you follow to transform some input into the desired output. If you can follow a cookbook, you know what an algorithm is.
Of the examples you give, the first two are indeed algorithms. Tobias’ examples are algorithms, in that the people describe a series of steps to transform the input information into the answer to the problem. Likewise, the web site uses an algorithm behind the scenes to transform the input text into a male/female decision. The video, however, is not using the term correctly. What he calls algorithm are more properly called “operators” or “move sequences”. The algorithm is the overall strategy he describes for systematically unscrambling the cube.
December 13th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Thanks for the comment! I think the rubik’s cube guy’s wording was off. When you have one piece of the rubik’s cube at the bottom, and you want to get it to a specific place at the top, and you have instructions for how to move that specific piece to a different specific place, the instructions you follow to do that is an algrorithm. Would you agree?
I better watch myself so I don’t write my next post in the comment section.
December 13th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Yes, that sounds correct. An algorithm like that can be part of a bigger algorithm (solving the cube), just like you can have a recipe that is part of a bigger recipe. For example, you could have a recipe for making a particular sauce, and then another recipe where step 1 is “go make the sauce (see page xx).”
December 15th, 2008 at 1:24 am
[...] if you follow the instructions, or algorithms, you can get yourself, one piece at a time, from point A to point [...]