From the physical world to the virtual world, algorithms are seemingly everywhere. David J. Malan, Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University, has been challenged to explain the science of ...

Artificial intelligence learned how to generate text and art better than ever before, while computer scientists developed algorithms that solved long-standing problems. In 2023, artificial ...

In 1996, Dor, Halperin, and Zwick introduced an influential method that delivered a “2-approximation” in nearly optimal time.

Building on a landmark algorithm, researchers propose a way to make a smaller and more noise-tolerant quantum factoring circuit for cryptography. The most recent email you sent was likely encrypted ...

The algorithms that underlie modern artificial-intelligence (AI) systems need lots of data on which to train. Much of that data comes from the open web which, unfortunately, makes the AIs susceptible ...

The AI-generated algorithms are already being used by millions of developers. DeepMind’s run of discoveries in fundamental computer science continues. Last year the company used a version of its ...

If someone asks you to determine whether two objects are the same, it might seem like a trivial request. In most everyday cases, a quick glance is enough for you to render an accurate judgment. But in ...

When the Clay Mathematics Institute put individual $1-million prize bounties on seven unsolved mathematical problems, they may have undervalued one entry—by a lot. If mathematicians were to resolve, ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price.