To me algorithms are as interesting as the formulas that makeup our Universe brought to us from physicists, granted they're both inspired from the same basis, which is to express a set of quantities algebraically that hold true as a solution to a problem. However, physicists and computer scientists are both working towards opposite ends, since physicists attempt to generalize a set of observations from the physical world into a law, computer scientists attempt to materialize a set of observations from the abstract world into a set of instructions, called an algorithm.

When I open this text-book's ToC it reads like a road-map into the beginning of the mostly unknown Universe of computer programming. I want you to briefly summarize why algorithms are so important, where they came from [their genesis], how you use them on a daily basis, whether or not they're more important than design, and what the formulas of the future will do for humanity.

[EDIT] More bluntly, summarize [and categorize, if you'd like] the evolution of algorithm design starting with insertion sort and ending at your heart's content [or AI].