The dovetail over all possible programs solves every problem with at most a constant slowdown. So if it was invented, it was invented 100 years ago along with

The dovetail over all possible programs solves every problem with at most a constant slowdown. So if it was invented, it was invented 100 years ago along with every other algorithm since the inventor of the dovetail incorporated it by reference. And there are no more algorithms to invent. And if it was discovered, you would want to compare the efficiency of your discovery process with the dovetail. So I tend to say "discovered with X bits of optimization power", where 0 bits reduces to the dovetail over some enumeration process, infinity bits reduces to "invention"(i.e. you consider one(or zero) object from the stream, constructing it directly), and everything in-between grades the search process.