After 30 months of fast-paced innovation in quantum algorithms, six research groups are hoping to hit paydirt. But there can be only one big winner—if there is a winner at all. I’m standing in front ...

Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, the governor of New Jersey made an unusual admission: He’d run out of COBOL developers. The state’s unemployment insurance systems were written in the 60-year-old ...

In 2019, Monte Leifheit, a warehouse operator at 3M, noticed his left eye was bloodshot and swollen. What began as a minor irritation turned into a yearlong medical odyssey marked by the lack of a ...

Some readers may solve the problem procedurally: line up the two numbers, add the ones column, carry the one, and add the tens to get 43. Others might instead notice a creative shortcut: 29 + 14 is ...

If you have encountered the error message “There’s a problem with this formula” in Microsoft Excel, you are not alone. Many users report this error appearing ...

In a dark room, in the middle of the night, a woman lies dreaming. Suddenly, her eyes beneath their lids dart crisply left-right, left-right. The eye signal means she knows she’s dreaming. Lucid ...

Steven Bouma-Prediger seldom sees students walking between classes without their faces buried in their smartphones. This distraction transfers into the classroom, where Bouma-Prediger takes matters ...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. Once upon a time, the Walkman and then the flip phone were on the cutting edge of consumer gadgets for anyone who had their finger on the ...

Do you stare at a math word problem and feel completely stuck? You're not alone. These problems mix reading comprehension with complex math concepts, making them a common hurdle for students. The good ...

Amateur mathematicians are using artificial intelligence chatbots to solve long-standing problems, in a move that has taken professionals by surprise. While the problems in question aren’t the most ...

Imagine Jo: Everyone in Jo's life recognizes her as an outstanding problem solver. She's the type of person who seems capable of almost anything. Jo excels at intuitive problem-solving. Over her life, ...