The term "Algorithm" is often used imprecisely. Most of the
time it doesn't matter, but sometimes it does.
Specifically, an algorithm:
- starts with a well-defined state
- is an explicit sequence of instructions
- each instruction takes the current state and returns a new state
- is guaranteed to terminate.
The transition from one state to the next is not necessarily deterministic;
some algorithms, known as probabilistic algorithms, incorporate randomness.
Examples include
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