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The British Museum algorithm is a general approach to finding a solution by checking all possibilities one by one, beginning with the smallest. The term refers to a conceptual, not a practical, technique where the number of possibilities is enormous.
Newell, Shaw, and Simon<ref name="newell">Template:Cite journal</ref> called this procedure the British Museum algorithm
- "... since it seemed to them as sensible as placing monkeys in front of typewriters in order to reproduce all the books in the British Museum."