A new quantum-inspired algorithm has cracked a problem so massive that conventional supercomputers struggle to even approach it. Researchers used the method to simulate extraordinarily complex quantum ...

What they are: A logarithm is the exponent you raise a base to in order to get a number, acting as the inverse of exponentiation. Why they matter: They simplify multiplication, division, and roots ...

Matrix multiplication is one of the most basic algebraic operations. Since Strassen's surprising breakthrough algorithm from 1969, which showed that matrices can be multiplied faster than the most ...

You’re at the checkout screen after an online shopping spree, ready to enter your credit card number. You type it in and instantly see a red error message ...

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 ...

One July afternoon in 2024, Ryan Williams set out to prove himself wrong. Two months had passed since he’d hit upon a startling discovery about the relationship between time and memory in computing.

A new suggestion that complexity increases over time, not just in living organisms but in the nonliving world, promises to rewrite notions of time and evolution. In 1950 the Italian physicist Enrico ...

Perhaps you’ve read in a biology textbook that humans have the same number of genes as C. elegans, a worm used in scientific research. Perhaps you’d also like to believe that humans are more complex ...

Blocked matrix multiplication You can improve the cache behavior of matrix multiplication by using a blocked algorithm. In this algorithm, rather than streaming through all of the inputs, you operate ...