When you’re trying to learn how an algorithm works, it’s not always easy to visualize what’s going on. Well, except for maybe binary sort, thanks to the phone book. Professor [thatguyer] is a computer ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Computer scientists often deal with abstract problems that are hard to comprehend, but an exciting new algorithm matters to anyone who ...

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 ...

Sorting. It’s a classic problem that’s been studied for decades, and it’s a great first step towards “thinking algorithmically.” Over the years, a handful of sorting algorithms have emerged, each ...

We’re suckers for the kind of “life hacks” that tell you that you’ve been doing some relatively mundane task all wrong, and that there’s a super-easy alternative which can massively speed up your ...

Java programmers use data structures to store and organize data, and we use algorithms to manipulate the data in those structures. The more you understand about data structures and algorithms, and how ...