The traveling salesperson problem is so difficult that practical solutions can never be perfect – only good enough. The challenge is coming up with the best approximations.
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Articles on Computing
Displaying 1 - 20 of 59 articles
Humans often stumble when they encounter the unexpected, but they tend to adapt and move on. Artificial intelligence systems, not so much.
Training neural networks burns through a lot of energy. As the AI field grows, it's working to keep its carbon foot print from growing with it.
A close look at how you decide what clothes to put on in the morning can help you understand how computers work.
The gender gap in computing performance has dramatically narrowed, but a confidence gap remains.
Nobody expected that allowing more communication would make computational problems more reliable.
How a bunch of wizards and goblins drove a 25-fold explosion in the share price.
Quantum computers aren't about to take over, but this is an important milestone.
As the country grew, each census required greater effort than the last. That problem led to the invention of the punched card.
Innovation in digital technology is accelerating – it has massive untapped potential for tackling the climate crisis.
The idea of a phone that can do everything is hardly new. But the premium pricing of Apple's iPhone 11 begs the question of how far this trend can realistically be taken.
Manufacturing quantum computers would be a lot easier with existing technology than the exotic components currently used to build them.
Mobile phones and tablets are basically mini computers – and to a computer, everything is a number.
Here is how our mobile phones compare with the computer that landed man on the moon in 1969.
Mathematicians have known how to solve something called an S-unit equation for several years. However, the process is so convoluted that few can actually use it to tackle their problems.
CC BY-ND28.3 MB (download)
It's been 50 years since the first prototype for the mouse was demonstrated in San Francisco. This the story of how it changed Silicon Valley – and the world.
The energy required to power the massive, factory-sized data centres that computers rely on already consumes 5% of global electricity. And that energy load is doubling every decade.
The Internet of Things is contributing to climate change. Innovation in computer design could help mitigate the problem.
We must develop the capability to meet our computing needs while using much less power and producing negligible heat waste.
CC BY-ND39 MB (download)
This episode is all about bitcoin. Will it be the currency of the future? Who’s trying to capitalise on the legal loopholes of cryptocurrencies? And is it possible to make mining them more green.
Top contributors
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Professor of Computer Science and Provost/CEO/PVC, University of Nottingham
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Professor of Education (Futures), The Open University
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PhD Candidate, Lancaster University
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Associate Professor of Physics, University of Leeds
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Director of UWA Centre for Software Practice, The University of Western Australia
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Timothy Gould is a Friend of The Conversation.
Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, Griffith University
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Professor in Physics, The University of Queensland
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Adjunct professor, Swinburne University of Technology
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Professor of FinTech History and Global Trade, Northumbria University, Newcastle
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Professor of Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London
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Professor of Novel Computation, Manchester Metropolitan University
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Richard Gunderman is a Friend of The Conversation.
Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University
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Professor, Dalhousie University
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Team Leader in Computational Biology and Chemogenomics, Institute of Cancer Research, London
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Senior Lecturer in Networking, The Open University
