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 [tha… ...

A formula used to reorder data into a new sequence. Like all complicated problems, there are many solutions that can achieve the same results, and one sort algorithm can re-sequence data faster ...

When asked to create a sorting algorithm, AlphaDev came up with one that was 70 per cent faster than the best for lists of five pieces of data and 1.7 per cent faster for lists of over 250,000 items.

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.