Every time you check your voice mail, make an airplane reservation, or run your microwave, you're using the greatest mathematical discovery of the twentieth century, the algorithm-the basic theory that runs a computer and gives DNA its instructions. David Berlinski, the author of the bestselling A Tour of the Calculus, takes you on a breathtaking voyage of invention, genius, and human frailty as he tells how the algorithm, a notion first intuited by Leibniz, came to full bloom in the course of this century.



It's a fascinating story of mathematicians and logicians, geniuses and oddballs, who gradually found their way to the algorithm. In Berlinski's brilliant retelling, the key concepts are explained so that even the most math-phobic reader is energized and delighted with the "aha" of understanding.