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.

As the world races to build artificial superintelligence, one maverick bioengineer is testing how much unprogrammed intelligence may already be lurking in our simplest algorithms to determine whether ...

You scrambled up a Rubik’s cube, and now you want to put it back in order. What sequence of moves should you make? Surprise: You can answer this question with modern algebra. You might remember ...

Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price. Unhappy with their meager profits, they meet one night in a ...