The most widely used technique for finding the largest or smallest values of a math function turns out to be a fundamentally difficult computational problem. Many aspects of modern applied research ...

A major advance reveals deep connections between the classes of problems that computers can — and can’t — possibly do. At first glance, the big news coming out of this summer’s conference on the ...

Raz, a professor at Princeton University and the Weizmann Institute of Science, and Tal, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, define a specific kind of computational problem. They prove, with ...