system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What is the difference between programs and algorithms?
gpt
An algorithm is just a collection of instructions to do something.  But that's pretty abstract, it's not tied to the specific way its done.  For example there's a maze solving algorithm that goes like this: "Whenever you reach an intersection in the maze, take an unmarked path at random if available, then mark it.  If no unmarked paths are available, take a path with a single mark at random and give it a second mark.  Do not follow any path marked twice."  This is an algorithm, but its not a program, how you perform it, or how a machine performs it will be different, but you can still all perform it.  

However if you take that algorithm and you write it up in a programming language, to perform that algorithm on a piece of hardware, on a system that can execute that code, then you have a program.  

The algorithm is the logic, the program is how its implemented.