The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. One July afternoon in 2024, Ryan Williams set out to prove himself wrong. Two months had passed since he’d hit upon a startling ...

Conventional quantum algorithms are not feasible for solving combinatorial optimization problems (COPs) with constraints in the operation time of quantum computers. To address this issue, researchers ...

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 ...

When it comes to teaching math, a debate has persisted for decades: How, and to what degree, should algorithms be a focus of learning math? The step-by-step procedures are among the most debated ...