Multiplication of two numbers is easy, right? At primary school we learn how to do long multiplication like this: Methods similar to this go back thousands of years, at least to the ancient Sumerians ...

A pair of researchers have found a more efficient way to multiply grids of numbers, beating a record set just a week ago by the artificial intelligence firm DeepMind. The company revealed on 5 October ...

This summer, battle lines were drawn over a simple math problem: 8 ÷ 2(2 + 2) = ? If you divide 8 by 2 first, you get 16, but if you multiply 2 by (2 + 2) first, you get 1. So, which answer is right?

Mathematicians love a good puzzle. Even something as abstract as multiplying matrices (two-dimensional tables of numbers) can feel like a game when you try to find the most efficient way to do it.

Algorithms have been used throughout the world’s civilizations to perform fundamental operations for thousands of years. However, discovering algorithms is highly challenging. Matrix multiplication is ...