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In computer science, a parallel algorithm, as opposed to a traditional serial algorithm, is an algorithm which can do multiple operations in a given time. It has been a tradition of computer science to describe serial algorithms in abstract machine models, often the one known as random-access machine. Similarly, many computer science researchers have used a so-called parallel random-access machine (PRAM) as a parallel abstract machine (shared-memory).[1][2]
Many parallel algorithms are executed concurrently – though in general concurrent algorithms are a distinct concept – and thus these concepts are often conflated, with which aspect of an algorithm is parallel and which is concurrent not being clearly distinguished. Further, non-parallel, non-concurrent algorithms are often referred to as "sequential algorithms", by contrast with concurrent algorithms.
- ^ Blelloch, Guy E.; Maggs, Bruce M. "Parallel Algorithms" (PDF). USA: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. Retrieved 2015-07-27.
- ^ Vishkin, Uzi (2009). "Thinking in Parallel: Some Basic Data-Parallel Algorithms and Techniques, 104 pages" (PDF). Class notes of courses on parallel algorithms taught since 1992 at the University of Maryland, College Park, Tel Aviv University and the Technion.