Timeline of Algorithms - Before Modern Era

Before Modern Era

• Before - Writing about "recipes" (on cooking, rituals, agriculture and other themes)
• c. 1600 BC - Babylonians develop earliest known algorithms for factorization and finding square roots
• c. 300 BC - Euclid's algorithm
• c. 200 BC - the Sieve of Eratosthenes
• 263 AD - Gaussian elimination described by Liu Hui
• 628 - Chakravala method described by Brahmagupta
• c. 820 - Al-Khawarizmi described algorithms for solving linear equations and quadratic equations in his Algebra; the word algorithm comes from his name
• 825 - Al-Khawarizmi described the algorism, algorithms for using the Hindu-Arabic numerals, in his treatise On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals, which was translated into Latin as Algoritmi de numero Indorum, where "Algoritmi", the translator's rendition of the author's name gave rise to the word algorithm (Latin algorithmus) with a meaning "calculation method"
• c. 850 - Cryptanalysis and frequency analysis algorithms developed by Al-Kindi (Alkindus) in A Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages, which contains algorithms on breaking encryptions and ciphers.
• c. 1025 - Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), was the first mathematician to derive the formula for the sum of the fourth powers, and in turn, he develops an algorithm for determining the general formula for the sum of any integral powers, which was fundamental to the development of integral calculus
• c. 1400 - Ahmad al-Qalqashandi gives a list of ciphers in his Subh al-a'sha which include both substitution and transposition, and for the first time, a cipher with multiple substitutions for each plaintext letter; he also gives an exposition on and worked example of cryptanalysis, including the use of tables of letter frequencies and sets of letters which can not occur together in one word