Algorithms that zero in on solutions to optimization problems are the beating heart of machine reasoning. New results reveal surprising limits. Our lives are a succession of optimization problems.

Determining the least expensive path for a new subway line underneath a metropolis like New York City is a colossal planning challenge—involving thousands of potential routes through hundreds of city ...

Back in 1996, a quantum physicist at Bell Labs in New Jersey published a new recipe for searching through a database of N entries. Computer scientists have long known that this process takes around N ...