Around the world, algorithms are increasingly being asked to do something once reserved for human judgment: help decide who should remain free and who should be deprived of liberty. In recent years, ...

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...

Determining the least expensive path for a new subway line underneath a metropolis like New York City is a colossal planning challenge—involving thousands of potential routes through hundreds of city ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. If you want to solve a tricky problem, it often helps to get organized. You might, for example, break the problem into pieces and tackle ...

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 ...

You probably don’t need more time. By Jancee Dunn When I look back on all the major decisions I’ve dithered over, I could scream. It took me a decade to commit to becoming a parent. I wavered for a ...

Using an advanced Monte Carlo method, Caltech researchers found a way to tame the infinite complexity of Feynman diagrams and solve the long-standing polaron problem, unlocking deeper understanding of ...

In a standard paper assignment setting, a set $\mathcal{P}$ of $n^{(p)}$ papers needs to be assigned to a set $\mathcal{R}$ of $n^{(r)}$ reviewers. To ensure each ...

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 ...

Last year, fashion publications wrote extensively about the impact of the algorithm on personal style. (Vogue Business included.) In last year’s fashion conversation, ‘the algorithm’ surpassed its ...