Mashable’s series Algorithms explores the mysterious lines of code that increasingly control our lives — and our futures. “The Algorithm” is impenetrable. It’s mysterious, it’s all ...

An algorithm is instructed to take a set of values (for example, numbers) and find a specific value (such as the number 7). The algorithm uses its built-in rules to organize the set of numbers ...

A few years ago I used an algorithm to help me write a science fiction story. Adam Hammond, an English professor, and Julian Brooke, a computer scientist, had created a program called SciFiQ, and ...