Bin packing problems are a class of NP-hard combinatorial optimisation challenges with wide-ranging applications in logistics, manufacturing, cloud computing and scheduling. The fundamental task is to ...

Graph cover problems form a critical area within discrete optimisation and theoretical computer science, addressing the challenge of selecting subsets of vertices (or edges) that satisfy predetermined ...

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 ...

In 1994, a mathematician figured out how to make a quantum computer do something that no ordinary classical computer could. The work revealed that, in principle, a machine based on the rules of ...

In life, we sometimes have to make decisions without all the information we want; that’s true in computer science, too. This is the realm of online algorithms — which, despite their name, don’t ...

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 ...