Mashable’s series Algorithms explores the mysterious lines of code that increasingly control our lives — and our futures. “The Algorithm” is impenetrable. It’s mysterious, it’s all-knowing, it’s ...

Quantum computers—devices that process information using quantum mechanical effects—have long been expected to outperform classical systems on certain tasks. Over the past few decades, researchers ...

For better accountability, we should shift the focus from the design of these systems to their impact. Describing a decision-making system as an “algorithm” is often a way to deflect accountability ...

A University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa student-led team has developed a new algorithm to help scientists determine direction in complex two-dimensional (2D) data, with potential applications ranging from ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. If you’ve been making the same commute for a long time, you’ve probably settled on what seems like the best route. But “best” is a ...

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 ...

In algorithms, as in life, negativity can be a drag. Consider the problem of finding the shortest path between two points on a graph — a network of nodes connected by links, or edges. Often, these ...