Mathematicians have found a new way to multiply two numbers together

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By Gilead Amit

Forget your times tables – mathematicians have found a new, faster way to multiply two numbers together. The method, which works only for whole numbers, is a landmark result in computer science. “This is big news” says Joshua Cooper at the University of South Carolina.

To understand the new technique, which was devised by David Harvey at the University of New South Wales, Australia and Joris van der Hoeven at the Ecole Polytechnique in Cedex, France, it helps to think back to the longhand multiplication you learned at school. …