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 ...

The library sorting problem is used across computer science for organizing far more than just books. A new solution is less than a page-width away from the theoretical ideal. Computer scientists often ...

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 ...