Ian Stewart's Visions of Infinity: The Great Mathematical Problems is an entertaining and fresh look at some of the most vexing problems facing the field of mathematics. We asked him to pick the ...

When computer scientists hang out at cocktail parties, they're apt to chat, among other things, about the single most important unsolved problem in computer science: the question, Does P = NP?

Sudoku fan? After diving into the math behind the game, test your skills with our very own puzzles in SciAm Games! Computer science seemingly rides a curve of unstoppable progress. Mere decades took ...

A new proof, published to the Web less than one week ago, purports to finally demonstrate that, in complexity theory, P != NP. As fast as the proof went up though, people found some potential issues ...

Last week, HP Labs mathematician Vinay Deolalikar started circulating a startling paper that claims to have solved the preeminent open problem in computer science, known as P = NP. Er, more accurately ...

An Italian researcher with a penchant for retro games -- or perhaps just looking for an excuse to play games in the name of science! -- has used computational complexity theory to decide, once and for ...