大英博物馆算法或称大英博物馆技巧即是以穷举法，从最小的组合开始找答案。严格而言，这只是一个解题的概念而非一个可实作的算法，而且以穷举法列出所有可能的话，运算时间和空间上并不化算。

大英博物馆算法可以下例说，假设有一问题，希望得到一个最短的程序来解决，则求此程序的方法如下：先从长度为n=1开始，产生所有长度n的源代码，再检查当中有否可解决此问题的程序（因停机问题，此检查过程不可能实作），若否，则测试n=2，如此类推，最终必会找到该最短程序，然而此方法却须花费非常长的时间（大部分问题所须的时间比宇宙的生命还长）。

The British Museum algorithm is a general approach to find 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.

For instance, one may, in theory, find the smallest program that solves a particular problem in the following way: Generate all possible source codes of length one character. Check each one to see if it solves the problem. (Note: the halting problem makes this check troublesome.) If not, generate and check all programs of two characters, three characters, etc. Conceptually, this finds the smallest program, but in practice it tends to take an unacceptable amount of time (more than the lifetime of the universe, in many instances) .