Earlier this year, the journal Computing in Science & Engineering (CISE) published a list of the top 10 algorithms of the century (see http://computer.org/cise/articles/Top_Algorithms.htm).
“Computational algorithms are probably as old as civilization,” Francis Sullivan of the Institute for Defense Analyses’ Center for Computing Sciences in Bowie, Md. noted in an editorial in the January/February issue of CISE. Ancient tablets bearing Sumerian cuneiform, for example, feature descriptions of procedures for reckoning in base 60.