The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. For computer scientists, solving problems is a bit like mountaineering. First they must choose a problem to solve—akin to identifying a ...

Right now, quantum computers are small and error-prone compared to where they’ll likely be in a few years. Even within those limitations, however, there have been regular claims that the hardware can ...

Children as young as 4 years old are capable of finding efficient solutions to complex problems, such as independently inventing sorting algorithms developed by computer scientists. The scientists ...

Among high school students and adults, girls and women are much more likely to use traditional, step-by-step algorithms to solve basic math problems – such as lining up numbers to add, starting with ...

Since the very first days of computer science — a field known for its methodical approach to problem-solving — randomness has played an important role. The first program to run on the world’s first ...

Two brothers in Singapore have built a data-encryption company on pure mathematics, betting that a problem no algorithm can ...

A team of computer scientists has come up with a dramatically faster algorithm for one of the oldest problems in computer science: maximum flow. The problem asks how much material can flow through a ...