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 ...

A new algorithm generates practical paper-folding patterns to produce any 3-D structure. In a 1999 paper, Erik Demaine -- now an MIT professor of electrical engineering and computer science, but then ...

Netflix developed a new machine learning algorithm based on reinforcement learning to create an optimal list of recommendations considering a finite time budget for the user. In a recommendation use ...

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 ...

Excerpted from Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension: A Mathematician’s Journey Through Narcissistic Numbers, Optimal Dating Algorithms, at Least Two Kinds of Infinity, and More by Matt Parker ...

This paper develops methods to solve for optimal discretionary policies and optimal commitment policies in rational expectations models. These algorithms, which allow the optimization constraints to ...

The library sorting problem is used across computer science for organizing far more than just books. A new solution is less than a page-width away from the theoretical ideal. Computer scientists often ...