Algorithm , as the word is used today, can be summarised as a computable set of steps to achieve a desired result. 1. Genesis of the name The word "algorithm" was formed in several stages from the nisba of Muḥammad b. Mūsā al-Khwārazmī (d. c.232/847), the author of a text on Indian arithmetic that was translated into Latin in the early sixth/twelfth century. Starting as a personal name, the word became a synonym for Indian arithmetic-that is, positional decimal arithmetic-and then came to signify a