Solving the riddle can reduce electric car battery consumption and make life tougher for currency speculators in the future. The discovery has just won the award for best research article and was honored at the field’s most prestigious conference in the United States.

... "We discovered an algorithm that solves the problem in virtually linear time, the fastest way possible. It is a fundamental algorithmic problem that has been studied since the 1950s and is taught around the world. This was one of the reasons that prompted us to solve it," explains Associate Professor Christian Wulff-Nilsen...