Kolmogorov, apparently, asked the same question. Here is a paper, where he tried to answer it (with Uspenskii): Kolmogorov, A. N.; Uspenskiĭ, V. A. On the definition of an algorithm. (Russian) Uspehi Mat. Nauk 13 1958 no. 4(82), 3–28. I do not know if there were followup articles, but the idea of Yu. Gurevich' "Abstract state machines" is somewhat similar. Both Kolmogorov and Gurevich tried to "simulate" actual real life algorithms. Here is one of the (many) papers on abstract state machines: Blass, Andreas; Gurevich, Yuri Abstract state machines capture parallel algorithms: correction and extension. ACM Trans. Comput. Log. 9 (2008), no. 3, Art. 19, 32 pp. This is not the foundational paper on the subject, but it gives a definition and has references to more foundational papers. Also look at this Wiki article.
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Kolmogorov, apparently, asked the same question. Here is a paper, where he tried to answer it (with Uspenskii): Kolmogorov, A. N.; Uspenskiĭ, V. A. On the definition of an algorithm. (Russian) Uspehi Mat. Nauk 13 1958 no. 4(82), 3–28. I do not know if there were followup articles, but the idea of Yu. Gurevich' "Abstract state machines" is somewhat similar. Both Kolmogorov and Gurevich tried to "simulate" actual real life algorithms. Here is one of the (many) papers on abstract state machines: Blass, Andreas; Gurevich, Yuri Abstract state machines capture parallel algorithms: correction and extension. ACM Trans. Comput. Log. 9 (2008), no. 3, Art. 19, 32 pp. This is not the foundational paper on the subject, but it gives a definition and has references to more foundational papers. |
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