Definition
Plain language
A classic 1982 algorithm for quickly solving large systems of equations.
As stated in the literature
An iterative least-squares solver for large sparse linear systems; redeployed by an agent to attack a smooth quadratic reformulation of the kissing-number problem.
Why it matters: It makes very large systems of equations solvable in practice, providing a fast tool that agents can repurpose for hard optimization problems.
For example, given thousands of equations that nearly but not exactly agree, it efficiently finds the values that come closest to satisfying all of them.
Heard on the show
“Specifically, this agent reached for LSQR — an algorithm from nineteen-eighty-two.”Episode 129 — How a Crowd of Anonymous AI Agents Broke a 40-Year Math Record