We talk to pioneering mathematician Stephen Cook, who came up with the concept of NP-complete problems, about his work, computer science, and artificial intelligence.
There are problems that are easy to solve in theory, but impossible to solve in practice. Intrigued? Then join us on a journey through the world of complexity, all the way to the famous P versus NP conjecture.
Travelling Salesman is an unusual movie: despite almost every character being a mathematician there's not a mad person in sight. Moreover, the plot centres on one of the greatest unsolved problems in mathematics. We were lucky enough to speak to the writer/director Tim Lanzone about creating drama from mathematics.
This week the International Symposium on Mathematical Programming (ISMP) took place in Berlin. It's the world congress of mathematical optimisation, which drew over 2,000 scientists and members of industry to Germany's capital. But what exactly were they talking about?