The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Hard problems are usually not a welcome sight. But cryptographers love them. That’s because certain hard math problems underpin the ...

Hard problems are usually not a welcome sight. But cryptographers love them. That’s because certain hard math problems underpin the security of modern encryption. Any clever trick for solving them ...

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...

Quantum theory and Einstein's theory of general relativity are two of the greatest successes in modern physics. Each works ...

Every online bank transfer, private message and Bitcoin transaction rests on the assumption that some math problems are ...

Quantum computers could soon be able to solve genuinely useful mathematical problems faster than classical computers, claims quantum computing firm Quantinuum. It would be the first example of these ...

Physicists have developed a way to model quantum systems on everyday computers, making it easier to run complex simulations without relying on supercomputers or artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The ...

Mathematicians have found a way to transform an unproductive quantum computing approach by reviving a class of previously discarded particles. Now, in a new study published in the journal Nature ...

Physicists have transformed a decades-old technique for simplifying quantum equations into a reusable, user-friendly "conversion table" that works on a laptop and returns results within hours. When ...