A canonical problem in computer science is to find the shortest route to every point in a network

Ben Brubaker

A new approach beats the classic algorithm taught in textbooks.

Forty years ago, researchers designing shortest-paths algorithms ran up against this “sorting barrier.” Now, a team of researchers has devised a new algorithm that breaks it(opens a new tab). It doesn’t sort, and it runs faster than any algorithm that does.

“The authors were audacious in thinking they could break this barrier,” said Robert Tarjan(opens a new tab), a computer scientist at Princeton University. “It’s an amazing result.”


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