What Is an Algorithm? Watch Two Recipes Race to Sort Six Bars

An algorithm is a recipe so precise that someone who doesn't understand the goal could still follow it and get the right answer. Computers are exactly that someone.

This page teaches the idea with sorting: step through bubble sort and selection sort on the same row of bars, count every comparison and swap, play the computer yourself, and see why the way the work grows decides whether a sort takes milliseconds or hours. Includes a short, runnable JavaScript version of both.