The blockbuster game Minecraft depicts a world created by cubes: everything is made of discrete building blocks. It may therefore seem particularly unsuitable for calculating pi (π), the mathematical ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 1939, upon arriving late to his statistics course at UC Berkeley, George Dantzig—a first-year graduate student—copied two problems ...

While the creation of this new entity marks a big step toward avoiding a U.S. ban, as well as easing trade and tech-related tensions between Washington and Beijing, there is still uncertainty ...

TikTok’s algorithm favors mental health content over many other topics, including politics, cats and Taylor Swift, according to a Washington Post analysis. At first, the mental health-related videos ...

With most of Washington shut down, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recalled employees to ensure that one statistic was released on time: the consumer price index. The Social Security Administration ...

A puzzle in theoretical chemistry has been solved at TU Wien: A new computational method now makes it possible to calculate the forces between large molecules with unprecedented accuracy. Why can ...

The leading approach to the simplex method, a widely used technique for balancing complex logistical constraints, can’t get any better. In 1939, upon arriving late to his statistics course at the ...

An exclusive excerpt from Every Screen On The Planet reveals how the social media app’s powerful recommendation engine was shaped by a bunch of ordinary, twentysomething curators—including a guy named ...

Chinese tech giant ByteDance finalized its agreement to sell a majority stake in its video platform TikTok to a group of U.S. investors. TikTok announced on Jan. 22, 2026, that it has formed TikTok ...

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.

With all of the world talking about Trump's tariffs — you know, the set of levies on basically the entire world that's set to wreak havoc in the global trade and make your iPhone more expensive — an ...

Small businesses thrive on TikTok thanks to an algorithm that evaluates each video independently. User engagement (likes, comments, shares, saves), watch time and relevant content are more important ...