What Is An Algorithm?

What An Algorithm Is:
A formula or set of steps for solving a particular problem.

What An Algorithm Is In Movies:
A weird magic thing a hacker uses to bring down an evil corporation.

What An Algorithm Is:
An unambiguous set of rules with a specific stopping point.

What An Algorithm Is In Television:
A way to figure out who left a blood trail in an alley.

What An Algorithm Is:
A recipe for baking a cake.

What An Algorithm Is In People’s Minds:
A formula that will tell us the best ingredients for a cake and spew them out on a long, receipt-style paper that will be read aloud by a man in a labcoat.

What An Algorithm Is:
Well-defined instructions for calculating a function.

What An Algorithm Is In Most Manager Meetings:
A something that happens that will give us some sort of information that does not exist.

What An Algorithm Is:
Something that people need to stop talking about without knowing what it is.