On the Formalization of the Notion of an Algorithm

The starting point of this paper is a collection of properties of an algorithm that have been distilled from the informal descriptions of what an algorithm is that are given in standard works from the mathematical and computer science literature. Based on that, the notion of a proto-algorithm is introduced. The thought is that algorithms are equivalence classes of proto-algorithms under some equivalence relation. Three equivalence relations are defined. Two of them give bounds between which an appropriate equivalence relation must lie. The third lies in between these two and is likely an appropriate equivalence relation. A sound method is presented to prove, using an imperative process algebra based on ACP, that this equivalence relation holds between two proto-algorithms.