Decades of math lie behind your Google Maps search for the closest Walmart ...

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 ...

UC Santa Cruz will join three other institutions to establish a transdisciplinary research institute bringing together mathematicians, statisticians, and theoretical computer scientists to develop the ...

Computing is part of everything we do. Computing drives innovation in engineering, business, entertainment, education, and the sciences—and it provides solutions to complex, challenging problems of ...

Many aspects of modern applied research rely on a crucial algorithm called gradient descent. This is a procedure generally used for finding the largest or smallest values of a particular mathematical ...

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 ...

Algorithms have become integral to our lives. From social media apps to Netflix, algorithms learn your preferences and prioritize the content you are shown. Google Maps and artificial intelligence are ...

A study describes a new computer algorithm which can be applied to Earth System Models to drastically reduce the time needed to prepare these in order to make accurate predictions of future climate ...

Ming-Yang Kao, professor emeritus of computer science at Northwestern Engineering, passed away on May 11, 2026. He will be remembered for his contributions to the field of theoretical computer science ...

Computer programming is a lot like chess. It is fairly simple to teach people the moves. But knowing how the pieces move isn’t the reason you can win. You have to understand how the pieces work ...

ALAN MISLOVE studies algorithms. Recently, his research at Northeastern University, in Boston, has shown that Facebook’s software was leaking users’ phone numbers to advertisers. He has also found new ...