Eternity in an Instant/Stone via Getty Images Finally, the last step of an algorithm is output – expressing the answer. To a computer, output is usually more data, just like input.

A recipe for brownies is an algorithm. So is the list of turns to make to drive to your friend’s party. A computer algorithm is no different, except that it’s written in code instead of words.

Algorithms are the sets of steps necessary to complete computation. Algorithms are the sets of steps necessary to complete computation - they are at the heart of what our devices actually do. And ...

A lot of Car Talk Puzzlers are classic examples of what computer scientists think about when learning to build algorithms. Above, Click and Clack (Ray and Tom Magliozzi) of Car Talk.

Peter Shor, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explains why he devised an algorithm for a quantum computer that could unravel our online data encryption.