Since the very first days of computer science — a field known for its methodical approach to problem-solving — randomness has played an important role. The first program to run on the world’s first ...

Many experts believe that once quantum computers are big enough and reliable enough to solve useful problems, the most common deployment architecture will be to have them serve as accelerators for ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price.