The Etymology of Algorithm
Every algorithm running on every computer in the world is named after one person: Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician from Khwārazm (modern Uzbekistan). His arithmetic treatise introduced Hindu-Arabic numerals to Europe, and Latin scholars Latinised his name as 'algorismus' to describe the new numeral system. The same man also wrote 'Kitāb al-jabr,' which gave us 'algebra.' For centuries, 'algorism' simply meant doing arithmetic with Arabic numerals rather than an abacus. The spelling shifted to 'algorithm' in the 17th century under the influence of Greek 'arithmos' (number), and the modern meaning — any step-by-step computational procedure — crystallised only in the 20th century with Turing and the birth of computer science.