A solution to P vs NP could unlock countless computational problems—or keep them forever out of reach. 1. On Monday, July 19, 2021, in the middle of another strange pandemic summer, a leading computer ...

When computer scientists hang out at cocktail parties, they're apt to chat, among other things, about the single most important unsolved problem in computer science: the question, Does P = NP?

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. They say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, but for computer scientists, two birds in a hole are better still. That’s because ...

Pose a question to a Magic 8 Ball, and it’ll answer yes, no or something annoyingly indecisive. We think of it as a kid’s toy, but theoretical computer scientists employ a similar tool. They often ...

The most widely used technique for finding the largest or smallest values of a math function turns out to be a fundamentally difficult computational problem. Many aspects of modern applied research ...