Many people, especially politicians, nowadays talk about algorithms, but seem not to know what algorithms are. Especially journalists and politicians seem to expect miracles from algorithms. The word algorithms often is used, when a computer program or anything having something to do with computers is meant.

But an algorithm isn’t something mysterious, which enables a computer to do miracles. An algorithm is a description! If you do something, which can be repeated, always in the same chronological order, then describing this chronological order is an algorithm.

Each computer program is an algorithm, but not each algorithm is a computer program. A capable software developer begins his work with pencil and paper! The software developer thinks about what the computer shall do, then describes this in tiny steps in chronological order. This description is an algorithm! Then programmers translate this algorithm in a programming language, so that it can be understood by a computer. If you describe how you put on your clothes in the morning, then this is an algorithm, too, although a computer won’t be able to put on your clothes, also not after translating this algorithm in a programming language. But it still is an algorithm. So algorithms don’t have necessarily anything to do with computers. You only can’t write a computer program without knowing the underlying algorithm. This is the whole connection between computers and algorithms.