Algorithms

Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems.

Researchers can now find the shortest route through a network nearly as fast as theoretically possible, even when some steps can cancel out others.

Random circuit sampling, a popular technique for showing the power of quantum computers, doesn’t scale up if errors go unchecked.

Computer scientists this year learned how to transmit perfect secrets, why transformers seem so good at everything, and how to improve on decades-old algorithms (with a little help from AI).

A quantum approach to data analysis that relies on the study of shapes will likely remain an example of a quantum advantage — albeit for increasingly unlikely scenarios.

Maintenance of the software that’s used for the hardest physics calculations rests almost entirely with a retiree. The situation reveals the problematic incentive structure of academia.

Inspired by the results of a game-playing neural network, mathematicians have been making unexpected advances on an age-old math problem.

Anima Anandkumar wants computer scientists to move beyond the matrix, among other challenges.

Computer scientists have found a new type of problem that quantum computers can solve dramatically faster than their classical counterparts.