Ada Lovelace has been called the world’s first “computer programmer.” In the 1840s, she wrote the world’s first machine algorithm for an early computing machine that existed only on paper.

The first primality tests using randomized algorithms (based on refinements to Fermat’s little theorem) ushered in a new era. Problem after problem turned out to be far easier to solve with randomness ...

Acclaimed as a mathematical genius, Ada Lovelace is said to have understood the potential of the first computer blueprints better than their inventor. A serendipitous friendship with the ...

Peter Shor published one of the earliest algorithms for quantum computers in 1994. Running Shor's algorithm on a hypothetical quantum computer, one could rapidly factor enormous numbers—a seemingly ...