The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price.

The LinkedIn algorithm can feel like a mysterious gatekeeper, deciding which posts reach only a few connections and which break free into wider feeds. For professionals, creators, and brands, ...

Recently standardized by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), post-quantum cryptography (PQC) empowers organizations to secure their systems against the ‘harvest now, decrypt ...

Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price. Unhappy with their meager profits, they meet one night in a ...

The RSA algorithm is based on the mathematical difficulty of factoring the product of two large prime numbers. It involves generating a public and private key pair, where the public key is used for ...

To achieve autonomous vehicle (AV) operation, sensing techniques include radar, LiDAR, and cameras, as well as infrared (IR) and/or ultrasonic sensors, among others. No single sensing technique is ...

Noah Giansiracusa shares five key insights from his new book with the Next Big Idea Club. "Math is too powerful a tool to leave in the hands of the elites. It’s time to take math back from the rich ...

Ever wondered how social media platforms decide how to fill our feeds? They use algorithms, of course, but how do these algorithms work? A series of corporate leaks over the past few years provides a ...

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 the easiest pieces first. But this kind of sorting has a cost.

Some individuals who receive Social Security benefit payments may soon notice a change in how they receive their money. Starting Sept. 30, the Social Security Administration (SSA) will no longer issue ...